Here’s one tactic for getting the user to learn more about your app: use notification bubbles. More than 70% of our users clicked the little red bubble the first time they opened the app, just to get rid of it. We found that information retention was almost 100% from this tactic, and people felt that they took initiative to learn about the product.

Why is this so powerful? Because it doesn’t shove information in the user’s face, it prompts them to ask questions and then provides information in context, which skyrockets understanding and attention.

(repo for making simple notification bubbles)

Contextual Tutorial

Give the user a quick tip

This is Connected by LinkedIn. The app provides little cards of information about people you’re connected to.

While I was browsing the app, I came across a card that told me to try swiping up. Right then and there I learned a new feature of the app.

This is After School, an “anonymous and private message board for your school”. Right when you open the app, a girl with a tiger’s head pops up and prompts you to try posting something.

Even if you click it just to get rid of the tutorial, it doesn’t matter. You now know more about the functionality of the product.

Empty Page Information

Use an empty page to your advantage

This is Facebook (obviously). When something is disabled because of permissions, the page is replaced with a quick tutorial on how to fix that.

This is an ingenious use of space! Instead of having an error message, you tell the user what to do next.

This is Things. They’re an example of what a lot of apps are doing now. When a page is empty, it means the user hasn’t done anything with it (here the user hasn’t added any todos). So, Things decided to use this to teach the user how to use that space.

So when the user is using it, you won’t see the tutorial, when the user isn’t using it, you will see the tutorial. Brilliant!

Conclusion

These are just a few of the tons and tons of ways to familiarize your user with your product. The point I want to get across is that having an elaborate tutorial is rarely the best way to do so.

Remember the 80 - 20 rule: 80% of your users use 20% of your product. So trying to teach everyone the extra 80% will be a waste of almost all your users’ attention.