Comment by ralferoo
5 hours ago
> 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.
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
I think notifications after updates make more sense. You already know the software, and you are informed of some new feature that you may or may not care about. How else can a user be informed about a new feature else? Even if I do not care about the majority of features added, there is still occasionally one that I may want to use.
I often read such notes/product tours in software I already use/know, and in contrast I find it a bit stupid when they add some feature and they do not tell the users. It should not be obstructing, though. I would say the updating itself breaks the workflow more than a pop-up window or sth.