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Why most product tours get skipped

productonboarding.com

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Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#71

Post by bluGill »

iqp wrote: post #39
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…

New users are probably the only ones who really need guided product tours. If I'm a longtime existing user I'm far less likely to be interested in a guided tour.

If your usability is good, you don't need a guided tour even as a new user because you can just figure out as a new user how it's supposed to work and get your job done. Guided tours and documentation should be limited to expert features that only a very rare subset of people need. The things everyone does should be obviously easy to use right away and so no helping or tour is needed.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#72

Post by bluGill »

layer8 wrote: post #55
esafak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works if you know the feature exists.

The best software help used to have a complete list of all features, with comprehensive explanations of all of them.

There are actually two different sites to the best help. There's that list of features and a comprehensive explanation of how to use them, of course.

The other side though is sometimes even more important it's what this thing does as a high-level introduction so you can understand all the things you're supposed to be able to do depending on the software this is some sometimes not obvious and that explanation can be really helpful to understand all the things you're supposed to be able to do and thus plan to use all those features.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#73

Post by profdevloper »

aeternum wrote: post #66

In some countries engineers wear a ring on their pinky to remind them of their obligation to ethics, safety and humility in engineering practice. In the US engineers don't get that ring and they implement product tours.

Sure it may be the engineers implementing product tours, but I don't think they're the ones pushing for them.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#74

Post by stavros »

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 let us teach you how to use this product" as a "welcome, here's what this product does".

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#76

Post by 7bees »

aeternum wrote: post #66

In some countries engineers wear a ring on their pinky to remind them of their obligation to ethics, safety and humility in engineering practice. In the US engineers don't get that ring and they implement product tours.

I'm only familiar with 2 countries where this is a thing, and the US is one of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_Ring

(FWIW, I'm not aware of any country where it's common for software folks to wear one)

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#77

Post by wodenokoto »

faangguyindia wrote: post #44
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…

I've never liked those "focus hijacking guided tours" and never really followed through any such onboarding process. But they are so common, i don't know who designs them and makes me feel like 5yo. You gotta understand, people will use the product you made, in a way that makes sense to them, not according to your devised "one way". And that's fine because it allows user to own his workflow using your product. I like…

Final fantasy 7, released in 1997 had one. That’s the earliest I remember

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#78

Post by susam »

I very much prefer a well-written product guide compared to a product tour. A guide does not interrupt me when I am trying to get work done. I can read it at a time that is convenient to me. I can bookmark it, revisit it and share it with others as well.

Re: Why most product tours get skipped

#79

Post by zx8080 »

> If they cannot find it in about thirty seconds, they leave.

Sorry but in many startup cases it's by design. See: got a KPI increase (email is collected), but as the user left there's no AWS resource usage! Profit!

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