What is a product tour?
A 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.
What a product tour contains
A typical tour is a welcome modal followed by a chain of tooltips, each anchored to an element on the screen, with Next and Skip buttons. Some tours branch by user role or plan, though branching adds work and is often left out. Tours are usually built in a visual editor, from a digital adoption platform such as Appcues, Userpilot, or Pendo or from a support tool such as Intercom, where someone picks the elements, writes the copy, and sets the trigger.
Why users skip product tours
Users arrive with a task, and the tour stands between them and it. Multi-step tours are dismissed by most of the users who see them, and the users who do complete them often retain little, because the tour showed features they had no reason to use yet. productonboarding.com, a site we also run, goes through the reasoning in why product tours get skipped.
Maintenance is the other problem. Each tooltip is anchored to a specific element. When the element moves, is renamed, or is removed, the tooltip points at nothing or at the wrong thing, and often nobody finds out until a user complains. We added up the full cost in static onboarding tours break.
Tour versus walkthrough
A tour introduces the interface. A product walkthrough helps a user complete a specific task, such as connecting an integration, and advances only when the user does each step. Finishing a walkthrough means something happened in the account, which is why walkthrough completion is worth tracking and tour completion tells you little on its own.
When a tour still makes sense
A short one. Two or three steps that point a new user at the first valuable action, then get out of the way, are still worth building. What does not hold up is the ten-step tour of every menu, shown to every user regardless of role, with nobody assigned to keep it current.
How Frigade fits
Frigade does not have a tour editor. When a user asks how to do something, the assistant walks them through the live interface step by step, or does the task for them, and that walkthrough reflects the product as it is today. Teams that want a fixed, deterministic sequence for one specific flow build it in code with Engage.
Common questions
- What is the difference between a product tour and a product walkthrough?
- A tour shows the interface. A walkthrough takes the user through completing a real task in it, one step at a time, and waits for the user to do each step. Tours are for orientation, and walkthroughs are for getting a specific thing done.
- Should every SaaS product have a product tour?
- No. A short pointer to the first valuable action helps in almost any product. A multi-step tour of the whole interface on first login is skipped by most of the users who see it and has to be rebuilt every time the interface changes. Products with many user types or frequent releases usually get more from guidance that responds to the user than from a fixed tour.
- 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.
- User onboardingUser onboarding is the process of getting a new user from their first session to the point where they get value from the product on their own. It covers account setup, the first valuable action, and the guidance that carries a user through both.
- Onboarding checklistAn onboarding checklist is a short, visible list of the setup steps a new user needs to complete before a product becomes useful, shown inside the product and ticked off as each step is done. It gives a new user a to-do list to work through at their own pace instead of a scripted tour to sit through.
- In-app guidanceIn-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.