Why most product tours get skipped • Hacker News Board

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#141

Post by Akronymus » Wed, May 06, 2026, 11:30 AM UTC

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #29

I feel the exact same way about tutorials in games that try and be comprehensive and show you everything. Incremental games do an amazing job at this (things like Universal Paperclips, A Dark Room, etc); parts of the game are revealed to you as you need them and it's often a fun surprise. I don't think the same thing is directly applicable to productivity apps, but I wonder if something could be taken from the patter…

> I feel the exact same way about tutorials in games that try and be comprehensive and show you everything.

For those an ingame encyclopedia and/or external wiki is a much better solution.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#142

Post by ralferoo » Wed, May 06, 2026, 11:33 AM UTC

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…

> 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.

I'd go even further. If someone opens your product, they don't care about anything in your release notes as long as they are still able to join the call. Not only does nobody care about the new background effects etc. right then, they probably don't care about them at all. Maybe if someone discovers the feature and uses it, they might hunt around for it before the next meeting, but probably by the time that meeting comes around they'll be busy then as well.

More generally, most people don't care about 90% of the features of a product, just that it lets them do the one thing they need it to do, as soon as possible. If it isn't obvious how to do that one thing, making that obvious is more important than a product tour explaining it.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#143

Post by chistev » Wed, May 06, 2026, 11:37 AM UTC

Yes, I always skip those lol

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#144

Post by ralferoo » Wed, May 06, 2026, 11:40 AM UTC

21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #101

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…

Wanna see what you can with this after the call - click [Take me to my Call- schedule a tour]. Tour only targets for power users and helping them. Shortcuts etc.

Actually, this reminds me of an anti-patten I often see on websites, after they've bombarded me with cookie banners and this that and the other, you get to read about 1 paragraph of whatever it is on the page and a few seconds later a "why don't you subscribe" dialog pops up. I don't think I've ever not once just immediately cancelled and decided then and there that I will never be subscribing to whatever it is. I've not even been given a chance to read the article yet, how am I supposed to know if the quality is worth me subscribing? All I've learned so far is that the website author doesn't value my time.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#145

Post by iamtheworstdev » Wed, May 06, 2026, 11:53 AM UTC

faangguyindia wrote: post #46

hatthew wrote: post #43

This is a bit of a tangent, but cookie consent dialogs have exhausted my will to navigate anything blocking the content I care about. If I go to a new website and encounter any sort of popup, modal, or large banner, I will reflexively feel an urge to close the page unless there is an obvious dismiss button. I often need to see the content on the page and resign myself to navigating the dialog, but just as often I dec…

I got around this by not using cookies.

doesn't this affect auth on, like, every website you visit? (genuinely curious)

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#146

Post by parkersweb » Wed, May 06, 2026, 12:03 PM UTC

jappgar wrote: post #17

If your product needs a tour your product is badly designed. Imagine you walked into a convenience store and the owner was like "Hey you need to take the tour first!"

I'd argue this is only true for B2C

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#147

Post by urig » Wed, May 06, 2026, 12:05 PM UTC

Don't build a product tour. It is useless friction. Instead, build your UI to be good,simple, obvious. That's it. That's the tweet.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#148

Post by fpauser » Wed, May 06, 2026, 12:13 PM UTC

Good UIs are self explaining.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#149

Post by sidewndr46 » Wed, May 06, 2026, 12:20 PM UTC

ralferoo wrote: post #142

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…

> 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. I'd go even further. If someone opens your product, they don't care about anything in your release notes as long as they are still able to join the call. Not only does nobody care about the new background…

Even more likely: if someone's opens your product your last update probably broke their workflow. They don't need to read your release notes to know this

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#150

Post by nickjj » Wed, May 06, 2026, 12:31 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

Yes and this also applies to other things like videos.

I'd be curious what others think about this:

If you see a video on YouTube and choose to click it, you as the viewer already know the title of the video and have seen the thumbnail. Those things together gave you enough detail to be interested.

The first 15 seconds of the video probably doesn't need to repeat what you already know.

But on the other hand, outlining what you're about to see in the video doesn't seem like a bad idea so folks know what they're getting into.

As someone who has made hundreds of videos and have seen thousands, whenever I hear someone explain what I already know I'm immediately put into a state of "cool story, give me the information I clicked to see".

Does anyone else feel the same?