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Why most product tours get skipped

productonboarding.com

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Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#121

Post by PetitPrince »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #94
michaelt wrote: post #6

It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. If someone opens my videoconferencing product 98% of the time it's they've got a scheduled call to join within the next 20 seconds . They're not going to be late for their meeting so they can read my release notes. If someone opens my PDF viewer, 99.9% chance they want to view the PDF they just ope…

Interestingly, there are basically two kinds of programs I am sometimes happy to see guided tours embedded in: * Creation programs (image/video editors, 3D rendering... hell, even a slides program or an IDE). Doesn't mean I won't dismiss them sometimes anyways, but these are tools that often I do want to get an initial idea how to use, that I have allotted some time to play around with, and that are sufficiently comp…

> * Videogames (i.e. the tutorial). For very similar reasons to the above ;)

Oftentimes it's less jarring to have an invisible tutorial though (a level made to exploit the new gameplay element / feature). But it depends on what you want the user to learn and the type of videogame; I don't mind a guided tour in more strategic games (RTS, turn by turn RPG, ...).

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#123

Post by josephg »

chromacity wrote: post #82
michaelt wrote: post #6

It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. If someone opens my videoconferencing product 98% of the time it's they've got a scheduled call to join within the next 20 seconds . They're not going to be late for their meeting so they can read my release notes. If someone opens my PDF viewer, 99.9% chance they want to view the PDF they just ope…

Another reason why I often skip them is that for "tech" products, the tours almost never cover how I want to use the product. Instead, they tell me how the vendor wants me to use the product. Browsers are especially notorious for this. When I get a tour for a new feature, it's almost always just some new, tacked-on junk to disable. "Check out our bundled VPN", "Use Copilot to shop for socks", "You now have more priva…

Yep. And ironically, the most complex software I use - IntelliJ and davinci resolve - don’t have any onboarding at all. They’re great! The makers of resolve have some excellent video tutorials on their website and a manual that is many hundreds of pages long. But it’s up to you to search that stuff out.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#124

Post by sixeyes »

josephg wrote: post #123
chromacity wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reason why I often skip them is that for "tech" products, the tours almost never cover how I want to use the product. Instead, they tell me how the vendor wants me to use the product. Browsers are especially notorious for this. When I get a tour for a new feature, it's almost always just some new, tacked-on junk to disable. "Check out our bundled VPN", "Use Copilot to shop for socks", "You now have more priva…

Yep. And ironically, the most complex software I use - IntelliJ and davinci resolve - don’t have any onboarding at all. They’re great! The makers of resolve have some excellent video tutorials on their website and a manual that is many hundreds of pages long. But it’s up to you to search that stuff out.

agree with your points, but damn, resolve has some strange UI patterns / key combos etc compared to other software i've used.

maybe if you're a video editor coming from years within the field, the metaphors make sense? for me, having mostly done audio stuff, it was a bit of a journey.

i dont think an onboarding thing would be the solution, though

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#126

Post by pmontra »

I don't know if it's an Android thing or only a Samsung thing, but my phone displays colored dots over the buttons that led to some new functionality. The dots go away when I eventually push those buttons. If I follow the trail of dots I can discover what's new. It's quite unobtrusive but pushes me to look at those functionality and get rid of the dots. Sometimes I do it in 5 seconds, sometimes in 5 months, but it happens.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#127

Post by pseudohadamard »

michaelt wrote: post #6

It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. If someone opens my videoconferencing product 98% of the time it's they've got a scheduled call to join within the next 20 seconds . They're not going to be late for their meeting so they can read my release notes. If someone opens my PDF viewer, 99.9% chance they want to view the PDF they just ope…

Alongside page 3 of the Google search results, 30 seconds in on a product tour is a great place to hide a body. Friend of mine has got rid of at least three annoying coworkers that way.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#128

Post by wongarsu »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #94
michaelt wrote: post #6

It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. If someone opens my videoconferencing product 98% of the time it's they've got a scheduled call to join within the next 20 seconds . They're not going to be late for their meeting so they can read my release notes. If someone opens my PDF viewer, 99.9% chance they want to view the PDF they just ope…

Interestingly, there are basically two kinds of programs I am sometimes happy to see guided tours embedded in: * Creation programs (image/video editors, 3D rendering... hell, even a slides program or an IDE). Doesn't mean I won't dismiss them sometimes anyways, but these are tools that often I do want to get an initial idea how to use, that I have allotted some time to play around with, and that are sufficiently comp…

Videogame tutorials also used to mostly suck. But in the last two decades they recognized the issues, and there's a lot of knowledge sharing in the industry

If you want to learn how to better teach new users about your product, GDC talks about video game tutorials are one of the best resource you can find

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#129

Post by fragmede »

pseudohadamard wrote: post #127
michaelt wrote: post #6

It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now. If someone opens my videoconferencing product 98% of the time it's they've got a scheduled call to join within the next 20 seconds . They're not going to be late for their meeting so they can read my release notes. If someone opens my PDF viewer, 99.9% chance they want to view the PDF they just ope…

Alongside page 3 of the Google search results, 30 seconds in on a product tour is a great place to hide a body. Friend of mine has got rid of at least three annoying coworkers that way.

Go on…

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#130

Post by Latitude7973 »

stavros wrote: post #74

I just created (yesterday) a product tour I'm pretty proud of: https://www.writelucid.cc It's a writing reviewer app, and the landing page is the product. It's literally a document with a critique. You can write in it, use the editor, even delete the whole page. I always skip tours, but I think this kind of thing (if your product can support it) is much better. Then again, this isn't so much a "you've logged in, now…

The sticky notes are a nice idea, but they should be aligned to the highlighted text they refer to.
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