[HN Gopher] Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual hel...
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Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more
Author : thunderbong
Score : 289 points
Date : 2023-07-24 12:02 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (driverjs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (driverjs.com)
| amsterdorn wrote:
| What's with the resurgence of marquee elements lately? They're
| terrible for usability/readability and are visually annoying.
|
| If anything this is a red flag for other aspects of the library.
| debarshri wrote:
| I just saw Walnut.io [1] demo for another product today. I
| skipped through most of the demo, did not really understand
| anything about the product. I think it is not the tool but really
| depends on who and how these product tours are built.
|
| I can imagine some products are complex and needs explanation or
| hand holding by solution engineers, account managers etc. No
| product ever is so amazing that you don't need help or product
| tours.
|
| [1] https://walnut.io
| partiallypro wrote:
| Cool js, but I absolutely despise websites or software that do
| this.
| welder wrote:
| It's an old library... been using it for WakaTime since 2018 (5
| years). It's very handy to highlight one feature on a page based
| on a url param, for example when your FAQ wants to link directly
| to a mentioned setting. We don't like product tours because
| they're annoying, so we only display one highlight per page
| showing the first thing you should do when onboarding. Like a
| tooltip highlighting a button on the page, not a product tour.
| omg_ketchup wrote:
| I think this is great at what it does. The only issue I have with
| it is the fact that if a targeted element is offscreen, it snaps
| to it instead of scrolls to it. Otherwise very, very slick.
| 1023bytes wrote:
| Please include a Skip button if you use these
| Ultimatt wrote:
| If anyone is looking for a jQuery days version of something like
| this https://zurb.com/playground/jquery-joyride-feature-tour-
| plug...
| partiallypro wrote:
| Really wish Zurb would release a jQuery free version of
| Foundation. I prefer it to Bootstrap, its lighter weight, but
| would be much lighter if they stripped jQuery and made it pure
| JavaScript/CSS.
| ecuaflo wrote:
| I also made a version of this https://github.com/CSFlorin/react-
| onboard
| tamimio wrote:
| Problem with these type of tours is a lot of information shoved
| into your face in short time and then it disappears, few minutes
| later the user will be asking "what was this section for again?",
| I tried it in a platform I built before, it was to fly drones and
| some sections where to control while others for video feed etcs,
| so you should know what to do before clicking due to the
| dashboard complexity, users will be nodding their head and
| hitting next without even reading any. Had to remove it
| eventually and instead I added a little information icon for each
| to hover over to get some info what that section is about.
| WhatWorkingOn wrote:
| Thanks, as a user I hate it. As a developer this is a great
| library to use to satisfy product.
| mercurialsolo wrote:
| While as a product user I hate product tours, as a product
| developer I always wish for an open source alternative. Library
| looks super cool in terms of the effects which are slick.
|
| Personally from over a few products have built, even the best
| designed product tours get dismissed 90% of the time in SMB &
| consumer products.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| There is really nothing new in this over intro.js, shepherd or
| the other 10 competing modules.
|
| If someone wanted to offer something new in the product tour
| space, make a fully frontend-only tour that has the convenience
| of the cloud-stored ones. (Aka be able to click on HTML elements
| to attach steps).
|
| I think this would be a nice product nieche for the companies who
| don't want their product to phone up a random third party API for
| a product tour.
| local_issues wrote:
| No no no no no.
|
| Design your product to be understandable at first pass. Apple
| famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone, while Sony
| forces you to do it on every new device.
|
| Let the onboarding be a forcing function for usability. This
| isn't a crutch, it's something worse and damaging.
| c-hendricks wrote:
| Guessing you're not familiar with the question mark icon in
| first party Apple apps like Garage Band?
| philvb wrote:
| You really need both: solid, intuitive product design and good
| new user onboarding. Even with a great product, new uses will
| still need help discovering and understanding how to get value
| from your product.
|
| Tooltips aren't always the answer though. Onboarding that's
| more seamlessly integrated into the experience are better, like
| Retool, Superhuman, or Intercom. You can see those experiences
| here:
| https://twitter.com/philvb/status/1617921908510699520?s=20&t...
| onion2k wrote:
| If you're on a Mac, open a Finder window, then click Help ->
| "New to the Mac? Take a tour". There's your OSX tour. It opens
| a web browser pointing to https://help.apple.com/macos/big-
| sur/mac-basics/ (or whatever version you're on).
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >Design your product to be understandable at first pass
|
| implies never deliver any product complex enough that a design
| cannot be made that is understandable at first pass.
| Redsquare wrote:
| I guarantee 99% of iphone users dont know 50% of iphone
| features. You have drunk far too many apple marketing
| paragraphs.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| Yes to the pretend you can't have this as forcing force for
| usability but I'm good for adding it if the user answers "Yes"
| to have a tour.
| thyrox wrote:
| Yes I agree 100%. These type of demos teach me nothing and are
| annoying as hell.
|
| The only button I'm looking for is the skip button. For the
| rare cases when the UI doesn't make sense, reading the docs or
| watching a demo video is far easier to follow as you can skip
| to the relevant part much easily.
| lxe wrote:
| Thank you. I came here to make a similar comment. Anytime I see
| a "tour" I know the interface is going to be annoying to get
| used to.
|
| Don Norman's "Design on Everyday Things" is a must-read for
| anyone working with UX/UI. Also https://jnd.org/affordances-
| and-design/
|
| (Of course, these affordances change over time, so some of the
| conventions/examples are a bit dated, but the spirit remains)
| ericmcer wrote:
| The one of these I don't hate was at Carrd. More of a
| toggleable full screen overlay with arrows and notes pointing
| to all relevant info. https://carrd.co/build/6881ccd20d634611
| adolph wrote:
| Apple does do product tours, example are animations here:
| https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-17-preview/
| mindcrime wrote:
| _Let the onboarding be a forcing function for usability._
|
| Sure, you always want usability and discoverability. But to
| suggest that everything can always just be discovered seems a
| lot like discussion of the elusive "sufficiently smart
| compiler." Eg, an unattainable ideal that doesn't exist in the
| real world.
|
| I am not convinced that the current state of UX is such that
| it's possible to make a UI where there is zero need for product
| tours, documentation, video tutorials, etc. At least not for
| moderately complex products and beyond.
| popcorncowboy wrote:
| > I am not convinced that the current state of UX is such
| that it's possible to make a UI where there is zero need for
| product tours, documentation, video tutorials, etc.
|
| Agreed. All software, like much modern design, is starting to
| look the same, which is heading to about as close as we can
| get here: that _conventions_ are baked into apps to such an
| extent that "everyone" "knows" what to do. But even these
| huge sacrifices to homogeneity won't ever sufficiently cover
| everything, or even close. At best we get common patterns,
| like games, where you can relatively quickly get to grips.
| But games are model worth considering. They don't smack you
| in the face like Driver.js does but they propose a congruent
| concept (progressive complexity).
|
| Anyway. I don't know. UI is hard. Abstractions are hard.
| "This button does this", "Click this to blah" is one
| approach. Driver.js has its place. And for apps I'm not sure
| the progressive complexity of games translates well (the app
| environment doesn't generally scale along the same
| progression vectors).
| smt88 wrote:
| > _Apple famously doesn 't do any of this with your iPhone_
|
| You're arguing in favor of a product tour. iOS usability is
| garbage. There are no affordances. Nothing is discoverable.
| There are a million inputs (mostly gestures) that no one ever
| finds out about unless someone tells them or they Google it,
| and they're not consistent across apps, even first-party apps.
| Sometimes "swipe the row left" means "remove," sometimes it
| means "more actions". It's just a jumble of inconsistent
| nonsense.
|
| Watch a non-tech person use their iPhone. They have no idea
| that they can do 50% of the things that they can do. Ever see
| anyone use "shake to undo" for example?
| jahewson wrote:
| These are basically power user features. You don't _need_
| them to get by on everyday tasks. They just help. Just like
| right-click on the desktop.
| MrBodangles wrote:
| "Shake to undo" also doesn't work more often than it does.
| You'd assume an OS-specific keyboard interaction would work
| anywhere there's text input, but no!
| pests wrote:
| The only time I use that gesture is when I drop my phone.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| >> iOS usability is garbage
|
| Yes, that must be why my technologically illiterate 90-year-
| old grandpa was able to figure out how to use an iPhone after
| being shown a single swipe gesture.
| tekchip wrote:
| My 65, at the time, year old father figured out Android
| just fine. What point was your n of 1 example trying to
| make?
|
| Please try to keep in mind there is a wide breadth of
| technical prowess, thought patterns, and comprehension out
| there. What works great for some people doesn't for others.
| Also something to keep it mind being able to "figure
| something out" or "use it" doesn't necessarily make it a
| good experience, or an ideal one.
| superdug wrote:
| Please excuse the last remnants of the technology debate
| of "Are Apple products worth the higher price tag of
| their very capable competitors?" It's been happening
| since Apple came into existence with people defending or
| arguing against Macintosh computers to where it is now
| with cell phones and the higher cost of entry priced
| iPhones. The ecosystem Apple created is the great
| divider. It's a closed garden in every sense of the word,
| but still a great garden where if you're okay with the
| HOA, you can live right on top of.
| brazzledazzle wrote:
| > _They have no idea that they can do 50% of the things that
| they can do_
|
| Maybe even more than that. I know people that have used iOS
| for years and don't know they can copy/paste text or drag
| down to search in messages, mail and settings.
| Etheryte wrote:
| People not knowing some of the features is not really a
| problem, because it doesn't matter. Every single one of my
| elderly relatives can use an iPhone after a quick intro and
| they don't need help afterwards. The device is essentially
| self-serve once you understand one or two core ideas. Them
| not knowing about some features is not a problem, they can do
| all the important things without someone helping them out. No
| other smartphone platform has delivered that.
| not_your_vase wrote:
| Haha, every few weeks I do some magic gesture, and my iPad
| duplicates the current application in a separate window. I
| never did it intentionally, and to this day I have no idea
| how to do it back. Also, I can't fathom who and why would
| want to do it.
|
| But the good, old Apple troubleshooting works: nuke it, and
| start again. If I close the app and restart it, then it's
| back to its single window form.
|
| Oh, well.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Every single one of my elderly relatives can use an
| iPhone after a quick intro
|
| So, after an onboarding workflow, in other words. What's
| the difference between giving them a quick intro, and their
| being some form of onboarding built into the application?
| Consider people who don't have someone on hand to introduce
| them to the product: how should they gain that same level
| of competence?
| capableweb wrote:
| > People not knowing some of the features is not really a
| problem, because it doesn't matter
|
| It does matter. I started using a iPhone maybe a couple of
| years back, after using an Android phone for many many
| years, and I still find out stuff randomly by chance that
| they could have just told me about.
|
| Biggest example when I just got the phone, took me maybe a
| couple of days before I understood that swiping from the
| top of the screen and down depends on if you're on the left
| side or right side of the phone, which decides if you see
| the notifications vs the "control panel" thing. Initially
| it felt random which one it showed.
|
| And I'm a technical user, probably in the top 1% when it
| comes to technical knowledge compared to the rest of the
| userbase of iPhones. And how do you think things like that
| works out for the rest of the people who don't work with
| technology for a living?
| alaskamiller wrote:
| My non-English-speaking first-gen immigrant grandma that
| assembled rice cookers in factories back in her day
| figured slide down for notifications, right slide down
| for control panel, and slide up on day 4.
|
| My mom didn't ask about it until after the first year.
|
| So to answer your question... maybe it doesn't take to be
| the top 1% of something.
| sgc wrote:
| Come on, iOS is not so special. Grandmas all over the world
| get by just fine on an Android as well. If you don't do
| much with your device, you don't need much. At the same
| time, it is obvious that gestures should be consistent, and
| the documentation should be clear, on device, and easy to
| find.
| superdug wrote:
| I think you're missing a key fact about who cell phone
| users _can_ _be_. The dumbest people on this planet can
| still pick up any iPhone anywhere and be able to use it
| even if they've never used the device itself once. It's
| muscle memory to people who wouldn't know what to do with
| a manual in the first place. You have to accept that
| there is no barrier to advanced communication technology
| to anyone with the means to procure said devices. While I
| appreciate a finely tuned platform for my technology
| uses, I still carry an iPhone in particular so that I
| don't need to do all of that advanced tweaking and
| personalization by sacrificing maybe 5% of my overall
| performance by using an unmodified iPhone running iOS in
| particular. Sacrificing that 5% of performance means the
| device has no barrier of entry for 99.9% of humans old
| enough and cognizant enough to procure a similar
| technology and be able to fully interact with me on a
| digital medium. Bringing it back to the topic at hand,
| those 99.9% of people includes family members who didn't
| grow up with electricity let alone technology.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I think this is a point where we'll fundamentally
| disagree, for all practical intents and purposes, no
| regular user ever has or ever will read the manual for
| their smartphone. Your phone comes with one, have you
| read it? Documentation is a crutch for complexity and
| it's only acceptable for hard topics and advanced users.
| Most people don't even touch the manuals for all the
| appliances they own, never mind your elderly relatives.
| If they run into a problem, they'll ask someone to help,
| not look for the manual.
| brigadier132 wrote:
| Do you have data to back your assertion it's damaging? Because
| I briefly worked in growth and the stats show these things work
| and help people.
|
| Apple gets a free pass because they have an army of unpaid
| bloggers willing to write articles on how to get around some of
| their terrible UX decisions (systems settings on iOS are
| impossible to navigate)
| dooraven wrote:
| I think this is broadly accurate for consumer apps.
|
| However, a B2B app ,which is where most product demo tutorials
| are used, isn't like this. Good product tutorials are great for
| salespeople to walk the customer through the app and sell
| properly to prospective clients.
|
| When the contract sizes are in the 10,000s or 100,000s and the
| product is pretty complex then this is a good solution vs
| having your sales and support staff having to firefight issues.
| twen_ty wrote:
| > Apple famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone
|
| Maybe that's why 50% of iPhone users still don't know that they
| can use long press on they keyboard (or space bar) to gain
| cursor control - and this is just one example.
| ibdf wrote:
| What's this black magic! Never knew it either.
| logical_proof wrote:
| iPhone user since switching from a Droid X. You just taught
| me something that I have been dying for... thank you and way
| to make your point.
| seanthemon wrote:
| Apple features famously taught in hacker news comments.
| pests wrote:
| If you press with a second finger anywhere on the keyboard
| after activating it will switch to selection mode.
| StockHuman wrote:
| This is featured the first time you ever bring up the
| software keyboard and then never again. You can see the
| behaviour by booting up a simulator. They do have an
| explainer, but it's very easy to dismiss if you expected to
| just start typing.
| jallen_dot_dev wrote:
| > This is featured the first time you ever bring up the
| software keyboard and then never again.
|
| In other words, a behavior that something like Driver.js
| can help you achieve.
| ericmcer wrote:
| You just changed my text messaging efficiency
| kristiandupont wrote:
| Hm.. I find that Apple products have tons of hidden features
| that I discover after years of usage. I appreciate the clean
| lines, I really do, but it does have a tradeoff when it comes
| to discoverability, so this policy is debatable IMO.
| ebiester wrote:
| They have the "Tips" application that has all of the
| features. It's on the front of a new app. What is stopping
| you from discovering it?
| WhatWorkingOn wrote:
| The difference is it's intuitive to discover. Once you
| discover this does something here, you start wondering where
| else could this happen? You might wonder if you can adjust
| the iPhone flashlight brightness. For me it was intuitive to
| long-press the icon in control center to find more options
| and I was delighted to discover that's exactly how it works.
|
| Those little moments of delight and synergy are why I choose
| the apple ecosystem.
| discussDev wrote:
| Half the time it does something, I don't know what I did,
| and I'm in a rush and so instead of sitting down and having
| a happy little moment I'm annoyed at having it do some
| unexpected, unrepeatable thing.
| WhatWorkingOn wrote:
| I have never found that the case in iOS. Anything I click
| / do unexpectedly I can reliably repeat the steps 99% of
| the time, it's why I prefer iOS over Android with apps
| that can modify the OS.
| jabart wrote:
| Have you setup an iPhone ever? Literally the first time you
| setup an iPhone it walks you through onboarding and a guided
| flow.
| runako wrote:
| Casual reminder that many (most?) assignments are to improve
| existing products, not to build from scratch. Whether or not
| one agrees with the sentiment of this post, there are certainly
| places where quick wins are, in fact, still wins.
| adrianparsons wrote:
| I laugh when I see these because I've witnessed the process
| that leads to them. It goes something like: 1.
| Relatively confusing UX is designed and built. 2. User
| testing or executive review concludes the UX is relatively
| confusing. 3. Product Manager says "We'll build a
| slideshow/interactive tutorial!" to solve the problem.
|
| The process and end result is completely understandable. It's
| hard to rehash a design when you've already built it and gotten
| buy-in.
|
| I want to spend as little time as possible with most tools
| (especially enterprise tools), and so often these interrupt my
| work.
| wpietri wrote:
| It's understandable in some sense. But wow, the arrogance of
| designing and building something and then only doing user
| testing at the point where it's too late to do anything about
| it. I could even forgive it the first time, but this just
| happens over and over.
| another-dave wrote:
| While this can definitely be true, I think it's OK that some
| experiences are geared towards power users.
|
| E.g. Photoshop is very powerful & you can be very productive
| but the controls aren't intuitive as a learner.
|
| Aeroplane cockpits are geared towards being easy to do all
| the complicated things need to fly a plane, rather than being
| geared towards being easy to learn for non-pilots.
|
| Feels like the "simple Vs easy" distinction.
| willio58 wrote:
| The "Hints" app is included with iOS, showing even Apple
| struggles with this. Most things should be obvious through
| using your product. For more complex things, it can be hard to
| rely on discovery.
| joshmanders wrote:
| > Apple famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone
|
| I just got a new iPhone and set it up from scratch yesterday...
| They do this, and it's everywhere.
| catapart wrote:
| If your product is simple enough to not need a tour, you should
| design it like that; MOST products are definitely simple enough
| to not need a tour.
|
| But if you're making Photoshop, or a deep-functionality video
| editor, or an enterprise accounting application, or a
| diagnostics utility or...
|
| If you're building any of those things (or something complex
| like that), don't be afraid to keep it complex and use a tool
| for building user familiarity. That's good design, actually. No
| 'one-size-fits-all' solutions on UX, I'm afraid.
| chadash wrote:
| Sorry, this isn't practical for everything. Sure, a phone
| should be intuitive. And more importantly, you don't _have_ to
| know how everything works at first pass. You can build it over
| time.
|
| But, for example, I recently signed up for HubSpot as a CRM and
| while I think that overall, the product is well organized and
| intuitive, it's just difficult if not impossible to make it as
| intuitive as a smartphone. The product tours really help.
| boomskats wrote:
| This looks great. What does it do differently to Shepherd[0]?
|
| [0]: https://github.com/shipshapecode/shepherd
| sdesol wrote:
| Here's some community information regarding the two
|
| https://devboard.gitsense.com/shipshapecode/shepherd
|
| https://devboard.gitsense.com/kamranahmedse/driver.js
|
| The popularity for driver.js has grown significantly in the
| past few weeks. Not sure what is the reason for it though.
|
| Full disclosure: This is my tool
| boomskats wrote:
| Your tool looks great, and I was never a huge fan of
| shepherd. I just wanted to know the objective differences
| between the two, or your reasons for building it. I'd already
| looked at the repository stats.
| mohamedattahri wrote:
| Driver, shepherd, you probably see where this is going...
| a-ve wrote:
| A similar project named BabyJesus?
| yewenjie wrote:
| How does this compare with intro.js?
| talboren wrote:
| surely a good alternative to userflow which kinda sucks
| marcopicentini wrote:
| I always feel annoyed when I see this. Users don't read and skip
| everything.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| As a user I only want to know about a feature when I need it. I
| don't want a tour or of the blue! I want to do the thing I came
| here to do. It's very unlikely that your new baby feature is
| the thing I want to use right now.
|
| This is why I love command palettes. It allows me to discover
| features by searching for them. When I've searched for it -
| then allow me to take the tour of where to find it faster/more
| conveniently and/or show me the shortcut key.
| philvb wrote:
| Tours aren't always bad, but they're often just poorly
| implemented, with too many steps that don't mean anything to the
| user. Onboarding that's contextual, like embedded tips, or
| relevant, like targeted onboarding by persona, or action-oriented
| onboarding, like checklists tend to be better.
|
| After leading onboarding and in-app education teams at Dropbox, I
| started Dopt [0], which is a react component library and SDKs to
| make it easier to build tours, but also more contextual and less
| distracting onboarding experiences like embedded tips and
| checklists. My hope with Dopt is that you can still build tours
| when necessary (like 2 step tours to introduce a new feature),
| but have a bigger and better toolkit for all types of onboarding
| and education.
|
| [0] https://dopt.com/
| no_wizard wrote:
| why does your website need to gather cookies? first thing I'm
| hit with is a cookies splash screen, I'm wondering what I'm
| being tracked for.
|
| I'm also curious about this:
|
| >Hybrid work
|
| On the face of it, I like the upfront callout, however how did
| you guys land on Hybrid being the solution? Especially in the
| light of working 100% remote leads to more productive
| employees[0]
|
| [0]: https://thehill.com/business/4110598-remote-employees-
| work-l...
| philvb wrote:
| For cookies: we're using Posthog for tracking and it's
| helpful for us to understand how people use our website and
| product.
|
| Hybrid vs remote is sometimes polarizing, but hybrid has been
| really great for us to balance the heads down time and no
| commute of remote with being able to jam on stuff in person.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Interesting. When Hybrid was made as a decision, where
| there any data points that were considered in that
| decision, or was it just made from the start, or top down?
|
| Do you think its not possible to have the same levels of
| collaboration remotely if the culture adjusts for remote
| only type expectations?
|
| (I rarely get to ping decision makers about these things, I
| apologize for the intrusion, I'm trying to gather as much
| data on this as possible recently)
| philvb wrote:
| All 3 founders worked remotely at larger companies during
| the pandemic and when we started the company in late '21
| we knew we wanted to be hybrid, so it was made top down
| from the start. For a small team, I personally think
| there are culture and productivity benefits for being in
| person. I think other companies have shown remote is
| absolutely viable for small and large companies, but to
| your point, there has to be a lot of intention around it.
| I don't buy into the dogmatic views of hybrid vs remote:
| I think it's more about understanding what's right for
| you and the company, and as a leader making the culture,
| policy, and practices work for what you want. For me and
| Dopt, hybrid has been a dream :)
| baron816 wrote:
| I built a library https://github.com/Evernote/Aquaman meant to
| accomplish some of these same tasks for a Redux app (also did the
| same think for React context, but that was never open sourced).
|
| The things this misses, I think, are that 1) you probably want
| the state of you app to trigger a guided tour, 2) you probably
| want a multistep flow at some point, and 3) the state changing
| logic of that flow probably should be separated from the
| rendering logic (all the steps of the flow should be together).
|
| That's what I was able to accomplish with Aquaman.
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| Is it just me that closes these as fast as possibly whilst
| grumbling about how annoying they are?
| croes wrote:
| Should be optional and you should be able to start it if
| needed.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I think they are good when you can both skip them and do them
| later. Usually you can skip them but rarely can I find a way to
| restart it once I've decided I want to commit the energy to
| learn the app.
| chadash wrote:
| Step 1: open free tier or trial account with new app I want
| to take a look at
|
| Step 2: open app, see your stupid tour, close it
|
| Step 3: click around, realize this might be what I'm looking
| for but more complex than I realized
|
| Step 4: look for that maybe-not-so-stupid tour again, realize
| there's no way to restart it
|
| It's not all that different than opening up a piece of
| assembly-needed furniture that arrives in the mail. Usually I
| look to see it I can build it intuitively before I go to the
| instruction manual
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Yep, I agree there needs to be a way to restart a product
| tour
| kristopolous wrote:
| When it comes to UI concepts I've seen this and popups about
| downloading the app and email lists and downloading the app and
| following them on social media and downloading the app called
| "the nag" a couple of times probably because calling it the
| "fuckyou" is too many letters.
|
| There isn't a fine line between helpful and hostile, there's a
| big honking obvious one with flashing lights and sirens on it.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Usually feels like a crutch for bad design, but some products
| just have a certain level of complexity
| ebiester wrote:
| Depends on use case. When onboarding a user, it saves support
| emails when people can't figure out how to fulfill basic use
| cases. It also highlights new features that don't deserve main
| screen real estate but are requested.
|
| It's only annoying when it's pointing out the obvious.
| taneq wrote:
| I think they're a design smell. If your interface is designed
| well, you don't need them. If you hide features behind cute-
| but-meaningless icons with no text tooltips, you users will
| still struggle to find them even with an irritating
| onboarding tutorial.
| ativzzz wrote:
| How would your users find out about a new feature on a page
| that's tucked away into a menu without one of these?
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| "It's only annoying when it's pointing out the obvious."
|
| No, I find them annoying every single time.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I also find them annoying, but begrudgingly appreciate them
| too. Usually they are interrupting my flow to introduce me
| to a new non-obvious feature, and sometimes those new
| features are super useful.
| dooraven wrote:
| Yeah me too but to be fair technical users (we're on HN) are
| probably not the target end users for the product that
| integrates this.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| An alternative I saw not too long ago was an app with a sort of
| "discovery" button. By clicking it, anything you click
| afterwards will be explained and tutorialized a bit.
|
| So if you want to jump in right away, you can. But if you go
| "What does THAT button do? What is THIS menu for?" it's great.
| It goes more at the users pace rather than bombarding them with
| info.
| golergka wrote:
| Most HN users likely do. But HN users are not representative of
| overall population.
| samwillis wrote:
| No, but also a lot of users enjoy them. It's like marmite, you
| either love it or hate it.
|
| Also note that most product managers love them.
|
| Quite often they are a symptom of a UI that isn't descriptive
| to particularly discoverable.
| nbhusal wrote:
| I made a more complete library a while back for those interested,
| driver has been known here for a while but Lusift is new and
| doesn't have that traction -
|
| https://github.com/lusift/lusift
| redocneknurd wrote:
| User onboarding tutorials implemented as wizards with masks have
| never appealed to me. It's like navigating through a forest while
| only looking down, limiting the overall learning experience. I
| once had to implement one of these tutorials, and the data
| revealed that very few people even used it. From that experience,
| I firmly believe it's an anti-pattern to avoid.
| djbusby wrote:
| I like these, but only a little.
|
| Don't force it on new users, but ask if they want a tour.
|
| Only use sparingly when new features/buttons/changes are added to
| the app. Only once per session. Prompt is Dismiss/Tour option.
|
| It's better if your app has an "intuitive" UX. But an un-forced
| tour can be helpful.
|
| Its better than the sign-in interstitial to announce features.
| wpietri wrote:
| And please god offer a help menu somewhere that includes decent
| docs and an opportunity to re-run tours.
|
| So many designers seem to think I am opening an app with oceans
| of time while asking myself the question, "What delights do
| these wonderful people have for me today?" When in reality I'm
| opening them to get a specific thing done right now. Which is
| the moment when I am least receptive to somebody forcing me to
| look at their product baby photos so I can say, "yes, your baby
| is beautiful, no really".
|
| The points where I'm actually receptive to a tour are _after_ I
| 've completed my task and when I've just realized that I don't
| know how to do the thing I want to do.
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