Why most product tours get skipped

Post by stavros » Wed, May 06, 2026, 10:09 AM UTC

Latitude7973 wrote: post #130

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.

Post by tardedmeme » Wed, May 06, 2026, 10:19 AM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #128

lazaroclapp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Post by ghaff » Wed, May 06, 2026, 10:24 AM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #83

zerkten wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But they are so common, i don't know who designs them and makes me feel like 5yo. Often these are the product managers building follow-on features that don't get the usage they want. Users aren't using them, but monthly usage is the currency of so much PM work that they have to try to draw attention to it.

It's a race to the bottom, for any tool out there the negative reviews boil down to complexity. If not: no instruction. Some people don't know how to operate a TV remote controller, unless it has 1 or 2 buttons. It's protection against the frustration that a few experience: ultimately unable to use a thing or jam it. At the expense of the majority bugged by mild distraction.

Post by tardedmeme » Wed, May 06, 2026, 10:28 AM UTC

robofanatic wrote: post #57

aguacaterojo wrote: post #8

The Product Manager needs to justify their job.

A good PM knows rejecting bad ideas is a big part of their job.

Post by Akronymus » Wed, May 06, 2026, 11:20 AM UTC

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.