I’m pretty sure that you already know online manuals and walkthrough videos are boring and ineffective methods of user education.
That’s why in-app tutorials are in their golden age, and will be for a very long time.
Used during the onboarding experience, in-app tutorials provide interactivity and a quick route to aha moments. In this article, we will go over what in-app tutorials are, why you need one, tools to create it, and an example.
Let’s start by looking at what is actually refers to:
What is an In-App Tutorial?
It refers to a tutorial that is designed to assist new users, or those in need, by helping them finish the tasks that they need help with.
They are much more common in the new user onboarding process than the remaining user journey.
Usually, an in-app tutorial is designed for first-time users but they are also indefinitely available to all users through self-help centers.
So, when designing an in-app tutorial you should keep in mind that it is initially designed for the new users.
Why do I need an In-App Tutorial?
An in-app tutorial can alone be extremely efficient as a method to educate users.
First off, you can’t ignore user education, its something you should invest in to improve your product adoptionWhat is product adoption? Product adoption is the process where an individual learns of a new product and becomes a user of it, learning what it does, how it does…, which improves retentionWhat is retention? Retention refers to a customer continuing to use a business’ product or a service and to pay for the said product or service. It is a key… and up-sell and therefore, revenue.
So basically, correct user education can make you money.
Second, as you find yourself in the decision process of choosing the method for user education, you will notice that online documents and product walkthrough videos are a no-no. They are extremely boring, one might as well say they suck the life out of you.
Learning a new product must bring excitement to you, not boredom.
So, with an in-app tutorial comes interactivity, convenience, and efficiency.
Humans learn by doing, so an interactive walkthrough which is available in the product, is not a good-to-have, its a necessity.
Tips for a Great In-App Tutorial
Creating an in-app tutorial alone is not enough to benefit from it.
You must optimize it so that it doesn’t become a pain point in a user’s journey.
Here are my top tips for creating the best in-app tutorial possible:
- Keep it short: Don’t bore the users with a long guide that explains every detail there is, go over the needed parts and keep it short
- Personalize it: Try to create experiences that are as unique as possible to each user. With the help of user segmentation, you can group different user-profiles and customize in-app tutorials for them.
- Have them do it: Make sure that your users are accomplishing the tasks by themselves with a little help from you, not the other way around. If they won’t interact wi
- Make it fun: To create a bond of trust between your users and yourself, you need to offer them an enjoyable experience. You can start by changing the boring material with interesting images and friendly texts. Here’s our guide to making user onboardingWhat is user onboarding? User onboarding is the crucial process that starts from the first login of a new user and ends up in their aha moment, and usually beyond…. fun.
- Track its performance: Your in-app tutorial will consist of many steps that extend over different pages. A step that becomes a pain-point can kill your completion rate, rendering the whole concept useless. You must constantly analyze your in-app tutorial and its parts to see if it’s doing well.
- Improve on feedback: It’s true that statistics can provide you with the main problems, but the qualitative feedback of a user will tell you how exactly they feel about your in-app tutorials. Constantly gather feedback and conduct user testing to see what their pain-points are and fix them.
- Keeps the developers out of it: The last thing you need is to have someone else create the in-app tutorials for you. If you can’t code yourself, you can use a no-code user onboarding tool to create in-app tutorials and many more onboarding elements in no time.
Speaking of onboarding tools, here’s my tool suggestion for creating in-app tutorials.
Tool for Creating In-App Tutorials
UserGuiding
When it comes to user onboarding tools, majority of them have the in-app tutorials feature.
Then why would I like to suggest UserGuiding when there are many alternatives?
Well, I have multiple reasons:
It is completely no code
A significant amount of onboarding tools that claim to be no-code require technical knowledge to fully implement and maintain.
That’s not the case with UserGuiding. It supports the no-code revolution by being as useful to a non-technical person as it would be to a senior developer.
Anyone in your company can utilize UserGuiding.
It has many features to perfect onboarding
UserGuiding can help you create a complete onboarding experience with many features such as:
- Interactive Product Tours,
- User Guides,
- Onboarding Checklists,
- Feature Highlights,
- NPS Surveys,
- In-App Messages.
It has Segmentation to target custom user groups
One size never fits all.
If you don’t offer each user a unique experience that is tailored for them, you are behind the competition.
With UserGuiding, you can segment users into different groups, then target these segments with different creations.
It has In-depth Analytics that enables you to track the performance of your creations
To improve something, you must measure it first.
In user onboarding, the measurements you can do are completion time and completion rate of in-app tutorials and their steps.
UserGuiding provides you with a tool that displays both of these values for every step, allowing you to locate pain points and fix them.
It has affordable pricing
And every feature above costs only $99/month.
UserGuiding charges less than its competitors with the same value with different plans from Startup to Enterprise level.
You can start your free trial and get unlimited access to all features for 14-days, see its value for yourself.
Try UserGuiding for FREE!
In-App Tutorial Example
Here is an example of a beautiful in-app tutorial created with UserGuiding:
GhostwriterAI
GhostwriterAI is an AI-based platform that helps marketers to identify the target audience and involve it with new highly-focused content.
It is perfect for influencers, agencies, and brands’ marketing departments looking to step up their content marketing game. It has various features that are used for different purposes, so they prepared an in-app tutorial for each feature.
Now, let’s examine their in-app tutorial their profiler feature, which is the first one to pop up.
As you see, their guides go over the main elements of the UI and what they do.
What is also interesting about their tutorials is the appealing gifs they’ve used. I’ve previously mentioned that in-app tutorials should be entertaining so, here’s an example:
Also, they do not use visuals just to entertain, they’ve used custom images they’ve prepared to visualize the point they’re making.
GhostwriterAI’s tutorials are straight to the point, entertaining and informing.
Here’s how UserGuiding helped GhostwriterAI spent %63 less time on creating and maintaining their guides.
The only thing missing: making users accomplish tasks. Don’t forget, humans learn by doing.
Conclusion
An in-app tutorial is possibly the best method to educate users.
But if not done correctly, it can be a pain point that is the source of churnWhat is churn? Churn refers to a customer cancelling their subscription to your products or services. It is a common metric among especially SaaS(service as a subscription) businesses. Churn exists….
You must pay attention to your users’ feedback and constantly improve to achieve the best onboarding possible.
