Do popup tutorials do more good than harm?
We have an iPhone camera app, and our designer said that some users (including his roomate, so it's not hypothetical) don't know how to use the app, so we should have a popup tutorial, perhaps a video, or a text overlay.
A related use of the popup tutorial is when we launch a new feature, like a video mode.
I'm skeptical because:
- I tend to immediately dismiss popup tutorials, and I've noticed friends do so, too.
- I'm irritated: "I don't care what new feature you have; I'm trying to do something right now." I'm less likely to pay or recommend their apps. Particularly in a camera app, what you're trying to capture may not exist a few seconds later.
- When I do want to learn how something works, the tutorial has long disappeared.
- The first run of the app already has three permission prompts, so we don't want more interruptions. We could show a popup after the user took five photos, for example, but they may abandon the app before that, because they couldn't figure out how to use it, so the tutorial comes too late.
Is there data on what percentage of popup tutorials are immediately dismissed, or whether they increase revenue, usage or satisfaction? I tried some Google searches, and found nothing.
To be clear, we're talking of tutorials that tell the user how to make better use of the app, not popups asking the user to pay, download another app, sign up for a newsletter, or other unrelated actions.