Most product people over-estimate how much their users know about their product and how to use it. They are de-sensitized to the difficulty of learning a new product, because they are so removed from the first-time experience.
This leads to the tendency of tours being very detailed and often missing some of the key context that makes it useful.
Before you begin building a tour, figure out these things:
What is the "aha moment" that I want a user to reach?
What's currently stopping or slowing a user down in reaching that?
Examples include: not being motivated enough (don't understand value they stand to gain); believing it's not worth the effort (think it's too hard); requiring someone or something outside the platform; not knowing what they should do nextDecide which 1-2 friction points to address from the product tour
Don't try to do too much! Give users a little nudge and then embrace their natural curiosity and desire to explore.
When creating tours for new users or educating about new features, consider explaining key terminology / concepts (especially anything unique to the product). Don't hand hold users through every painstaking step (e.g. form fields) because that feels overbearing and patronizing.
NEXT: One thing at a time 1️⃣