Feedback on idea - Would you pay for this?
Over the weekend I had this idea of a service where you can create step-by-step intro/tutorial/guide to your web app as an overlay on top of it. Like some saas apps have during onboarding.
The user creates the the tutorial in a drag-n-drop like interface, by choosing which elements should be highlighted and what text instructions (and arrows and whatnot) should be used. Then they include it as an external script-tag in their html and it's ready to go.
The main selling point is that you don't have to code to create and edit the instructions for how to use the web app.
I made a simple prototype of how it would look:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a77nqumb1gvcrht/Screencast 2018-02-04 14%3A30%3A03.mp4?dl=0
I think there is stiff competition if you look at the user onboarding area as a whole, for example from Intercom, Userlane, Pendo and the likes. They all seem very enterprisy and full-service kind of thing though, don't even have transparent pricing, so maybe there is room for a smaller, easy to use, single-service kind of service.
On the other hand, will people really pay for such a small thing? Or will they just code it themselves?
And do they want user analytics etc to make it worth buying?
What do you think? Would you pay for this service? How much? $10 per month?
Thanks!
I recently found UserGuiding on Product Hunt, which has a free tier that works for me.
I tried setting up an initial guide, which failed, but assuming they work out the kinks, I'm planning on going with them.
Thanks Ryan! Yea that looks very similar to what I was thinking of. Maybe you should checkout Nino's product, https://guideblocks.com, from the comment above if they don't work out the kinks. They also seem to have a free tier.
Thnx Joakim :)
Probably not. Personally I'd skip those tutorials 10/10 times. If the UI can't explain itself, then it's too complicated and needs to be reduced.
Any sort of "tutorial" is usually best for an Enterprise or any complex tool, where training could be factored in.
I have to disagree here. While I think you make a good point that the UI should explain itself, sometimes you can create a better experience overall by having interactions that aren't immediately obvious. If everything is obvious all of the time then things start to compete with each other.
I think if you could make these tutorials contextual as oppose to aa one size fits all I would 100% pay at least $10 for this. We're just in the process of launching our first product and anything that helps us create a better experience without writing much code is a huge win for us!
Thanks Dave! Could you eloborate a bit on what you mean with contextual? In what way are the current solutions a "one size fits all"?
Ah yeah sorry I wasn't very clear there! So usually when you open an app you're get a quick guide on where everything is and how it all works. Personally I don't think those are very useful because when you sign up you usually want to do something specific - hence why most people just dismiss them. But if you could create specific onboarding moments as people use the app through triggered events you can add a lot more value by actually helping them make progress with your app as oppose to just giving them everything at once. Does that make sense (I can give an example if that helps :) )
Right! I see your point, that makes a lot of sense. I didn't think of that use case, but it would actually be possible with how I was planning to implement the product. You could add whatever trigger you wanted for different tutorials, for example based on user flow. I would have to think about how to make that work without coding on the customer side though.
I think I get your point, but would appreciate an example anyway :)
Dropbox Paper have a great example of this. Instead of showing everything you can do up front, they show you things like how you can invite people when you create a checklist. It's only a small detail but it really helps you get the most out the app when you need to :)
I realise this is much more complex than what you originally planned but that's the thing I would pay for :)
I just tried Dropbox Paper. You're right, that was a pretty great tutorial. Not annoying and actually helpful.
That was great feedback, to know what someone would pay for is exactly what I'm after. And I actually don't think it's that much more complex, just a matter of letting the customer set triggers for when the user is doing different actions (focusing elements etc). I will experiment a bit with it if I decide to continue with the idea.
Thanks a lot Dave! :)
No problem :) Excited to see what you come up with!
Here's the onbaording we're planning for our app https://projects.invisionapp.com/share/3MDD02GWK#/screens - if your able to do something similar I'd love to give is a go!
Cool! I'll ping you if I get a prototype going :)
I think you hit the nail on the head! The onboarding services that exist are all targeting enterprise customers, and it's probably for such software that a tutorial is really needed. So this might not be the best idea. Thanks!
We currently use a similar open-source npm package, which seems to be very widely adopted (after skimming over similar cases on Stack Overflow): https://introjs.com/
This was interesting! Will have a look at their implementation if I decide to continue with the idea. Thanks!
A few months ago we released similar solution: https://guideblocks.com
Besides step-by-step-tours (walkthroughs) primarily used for user onboarding/product adoption/training, our product also offers context help and online help center/knowledge base which can be integrated with your app.
We already have first users, and we were able to get initial traction.
But - as you already pointed out - there are tons of similar solutions for user onboarding and, as with any other new product on the market, you will have to find:
Cool! Looks like a great product. This is similar to how I would imagine positioning the product.
Interesting with the screenshot solution, I would have thought you needed to get the actual html etc from the product page to position the instructions, highlight areas etc.
As of now I don't really have a good way of differentiating my potential product. I might have a good marketing strategy for reaching the first few customers at least.
Thanks for sharing!
Thnx for the feedback.
When we say "take a screenshot", it's actually "take a Smart Screenshot" - "smart" part is taking relevant info about HTML elements + the image (the screenshot). Having these additional data allows a user to position/link tour steps/context help icons, etc., next to the desired HTML element. Once one of our actions is linked to the HTML element, it will follow element around on the page (in case of resizing) and even in case of changing page design (from version 1 to version 2 of the page/app).
Ah I see, yea that's how I thought it would have to work. Thanks for clarifying! :)
I wouldn't pay for something like that but some definitely would.
https://www.walkme.com/
WalkMe is one of the first that I remember hearing about, and now there are a bunch of copycats. So the question is how do you differentiate.
There is certainly money to be made in onboarding-aids, but you might ask yourself if there is a better way to onboard users, and how you can make a product out of that.
(Personally I can't stand these overlay things. If I do click through, by the time I'm ready to start working I forget what the walkthrough showed me. All the info is just noise until I start poking around on my own and getting my own sense for how the place is organized.)
Interesting! They also seem to be targeting enterprise customers. I guess thats where the money is. The only differentiating factor I can think of would be to make it really simple to setup and without the whole enterprise service machinery.
Fair enough, I actually don't like those tutorials either. But I think they can be good for less tech savvy users.
As for walkme they are also heavily advertising on Twitter and FB ... Either its working for them or they are quickly burning investor money...
Haha right, you can never be sure if a company is successful or just throwing around VC money.
Medium-size companies as well. Because development is very scarce resource. I would say, you can sell it through product managers and marketing managers, so they don't need to ask dev (it would take weeks or months to implement because of current roadmap).
Good point! That is probably the best customer group for this kind of product. Thanks!
There are js libraries to do exactly what you are trying to do. Hell, if you use WordPress like I do for my SAAS(s), it has an inbuilt option for just this.
So, its a NO for me. Definitely not recurring.
Thanks! Yea as a developer it might be too simple to implement yourself.
I'm not sure you can do this with wordpress. probably you should create your own UML tech. So you have to learn these tech stuff.
And I would recommend firebase for every bootstrappers. Because free to starting, built-in https, free sms auth and other auth stuff, realtime database etc, SDK's for all platforms. Its great to start. And you can use cloud functions (node.js) and you can use UML packages here; https://www.npmjs.com/search?q=uml
Thanks! Yea I've tried firebase a bit in the past, it seems like a great way to speed up development. Not sure about UML though, might be a bit hard to make it intuitive. I was thinking that the user can point n click/drag n drop elements on top of their actual UI to create and edit the instructions.
For me I'd maybe do a small annual fee if it was REALLY easy to do. Otherwise I'd just use Hopscotch or one of the others listed for free.
Just curious, why is an annual fee better than a monthly? Or do you mean the price has to be lower in general?
I could have sworn I replied to this but I didn't and I am sorry for that.
I meant lower in general. An annual fee the comes out to a couple of bucks a month.
Again sorry for the delayed response.