What is in-app guidance?
In-app guidance is help delivered inside the product interface, where the user is working, instead of in a separate help center, email, or support ticket. It includes tooltips, walkthroughs, checklists, contextual hints, and in-product assistants that answer questions and complete tasks.
Different types of in-app guidance
In-app guidance splits into proactive and reactive. Proactive guidance appears without the user asking, such as a tooltip on a new control or a banner announcing a feature. Setup checklists and walkthroughs that start on a specific screen belong to the same group. Reactive guidance waits for the user: an in-product search, a help panel, or an assistant the user can ask a question.
Traditional guidance tools are mostly proactive and entirely scripted. Someone decides in advance what to show, where, and to whom. Assistant-based guidance can be either, and the difference is that it comes from the assistant's knowledge of the product rather than from a script written for one screen.
Why in-app help beats a help center
The user is already on the screen where the problem is. Help that appears there can point at the button in question and use the field names the user is looking at. Help that lives in a help center has to describe the interface in words, and the user has to switch tabs, search, read, and switch back. Each of those steps loses some users, and the article may describe a version of the interface that no longer exists.
The same logic applies to support tickets. A ticket is the slowest kind of help, because the answer arrives hours later from someone who cannot see the user's screen.
Where scripted guidance falls short
It interrupts, because it fires on a trigger rather than on a need. And it goes stale, because it is tied to specific screens and elements that change. Both problems grow with the number of guides and the pace of shipping.
The other limit is that guidance usually explains and stops. A tooltip can tell a user which settings page to open, which is fine for simple tasks. For a multi-step workflow with prerequisites, explaining the steps is often not enough to get the user through them.
How Frigade fits
Frigade covers both kinds of in-app guidance from one assistant. The reactive kind is the user asking a question in context and getting an answer plus the action. The proactive kind is a Suggestion, targeted by page or user property, that puts the assistant in front of a user who is likely to need it. Neither is a script anchored to an element, which is what removes the interruption and staleness problems.
Common questions
- What is the difference between in-app guidance and a help center?
- A help center is a separate site the user has to leave the product to read, then translate back into the interface. In-app guidance appears inside the product, on the screen the user is looking at, and often refers directly to the elements on it. The two can coexist, but in-app guidance handles the question at the moment it comes up.
- Does in-app guidance annoy users?
- It can, when it interrupts. Guidance that appears without being asked for and blocks the interface is the kind that gets dismissed. Guidance that responds to what the user is doing, or waits for the user to ask, does not have that problem.
- Contextual helpContextual help is assistance that changes based on where the user is and what they are doing in the product, so the answer matches the screen in front of them. It ranges from a tooltip on a single field to an assistant that knows the user's current page and answers accordingly.
- Product tourA product tour is a scripted sequence of in-app steps, usually tooltips or modals, that introduces a new user to a product's interface. Most tours are shown on first login and follow a fixed order regardless of what the user came to do.
- Product walkthroughA product walkthrough is step-by-step guidance that takes a user through completing a real task in the product, in the live interface, one action at a time. Unlike a product tour, which shows the interface, a walkthrough waits for the user to do each step and advances when they do.
- Digital adoption platformA digital adoption platform (DAP) is a software layer that runs on top of another application and guides users through it with in-app walkthroughs, tooltips, checklists, and contextual help. Companies use one to onboard new users, drive feature adoption, and reduce support volume without rebuilding the product itself.