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I consider tooltips [1] to be explanatory information about user interface elements that appears in response to voluntary action taken by the user (namely—at le
by bhauer 7y ago
I consider tooltips [1] to be explanatory information about user interface elements that appears in response to voluntary action taken by the user (namely—at least traditionally—when hovering over an element).
The example screen-captures in the article appear to be of something subtly different: involuntary promotion of new features or recent changes. There is probably a more established term for this UX tactic, but I know it as a "guided demo." These guided demos are often employed when orienting a new user with key elements of the application's user interface.
Some distinctions:
1. Tooltips are in response to voluntary exploration by the user. Guided demos are usually involuntary.
2. Tooltips are available at will and infinitely repeatable; they always appear when the user is "inspecting" an element. Guided demos usually are once-and-done (and are notoriously difficult for users to revisit later if they elected to skip them).
3. Because tooltips are voluntary, they occur at the user's area of attention. Guided demos are typically attempting to draw user attention to somewhere it's not already. Hence, guided demos are often coupled with some form of obfuscation of other UI elements (e.g., a dimming mask layer over the rest of the UI).
4. Tooltips are immediate both in and out—they appear on hover and disappear on exit. A tell-tale of guided demos is that the pop-ups usually include some form of dismiss button ("OK" button or close button), because they are involuntary and therefore need to confirm they've successfully captured user attention.
5. Tooltips are individual and paced by the user's interest. Guided demos are commonly linked into a "wizard-like" sequence (e.g., let's walk you through the three most important elements of this UI.)
If it's not clear from the above, I feel traditional tooltips are generally good because they reward exploration while remaining entirely voluntary. Meanwhile, guided demos are a mixed bag: sometimes a necessary evil to clear an especially difficult UI hurdle, but easily used to excess and disruptive to users.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooltip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooltip
- jrochkind1 7y agoI'd call it a "guided demo" when it happens the first time you use the app (I believe Slack does this), or when you ask for a guided demo. But the examples the OP are pointing out are a bit different. Rather than a "guided demo" which sounds like a sequence of these -- what's being covered here is usually a single solitary one, usually for a newly released feature, that appears on screen load, even if you are a long time user of the app, and without asking for any kind of guidance or demo, until you dismiss it (or in some cases they can time out on their own). I have been noticing this phenomenon more and more, and think it is worth pointing out and commenting upon. Which is more interesting than debating whether "tooltip" is the right term for it; or talking about traditional tooltips which might be interesting, but isn't what the OP is about at all, someone can write a different article about that. (They are "tips about tools", and _look_ like traditional tooltips, so I can see why the OP author called them tooltips. But this is clearly confusing many people. I guess I'd call them "feature disclosure callouts" or something like that).
- torgoguys 7y agoGood analysis. I love traditional tooltips. They don't work so well for touch devices, but if you've got a mouse they're great and can almost be seen as a progressive enhancement. I'm also a fan of the even older tooltip cousin where a bottom status bar of a window has info about the object in the window that currently has focus. This has disappeared from many apps, but is especially useful to keyboard users.
- chrisweekly 7y agoNice summary. Tooltips are great for self-guided discovery when there's a cursor; what about touch interfaces?
- frosted-flakes 7y agoLess useful because they're only available on long press and your finger often covers the tooltip, but still available. I imagine most people don't even know how to invoke them. For example, on Android, long pressing an icon in the top bar of an app will show its label.
- java-man 7y agoOne possible solution could involve showing help bubbles for every ui component when tapping a dedicated Help or (?) icon. Tap on a bubble and it expands into a larger one or navigates to a separate help page.
- wlesieutre 7y agoAffinity does this with their iOS apps. Everything shows labels while you hold a finger on the ? in the corner. http://imgur.com/HGQiAtK http://imgur.com/HGQiAtK
- java-man 7y agolove it!
- pugworthy 7y agoI like this a lot. I just posted a comment about touch a bit ago, not seeing this little thread.
- bromuro 7y agoModern smartphones UI do not use tooltips. Explore the app by touching it. Give option to revert the action. It is an effective way also to learn an app - by doing, not reading. If you need tooltip or guides like those, your UI has other serious issues.
- jborichevskiy 7y agoWhen I was just beginning to use desktop applications everything had tooltips and nothing had guided demos. In my opinion it's a much more natural way of exploring features; you see what buttons do before committing an action, you get to start understanding the scope of features and capabilities of an application, and you get the opportunity to build a mental "map" of the application - but all at your own pace and available whenever you want. I might be in the minority but guided demos today seem to achieve very little of these desired effects: they usually start at inconvenient times (I might still be configuring my profile or registration settings), as bhauer mentioned they're hard to re-activate and re-visit, they're not comprehensive (usually only cover the top 5-10 actions or functions), and generally a little overwhelming when getting accustomed to a new interface. I will acknowledge today's user interfaces are different to late 1990's software where everything had an explicit button or menu action, particularly with touch screen interfaces now. But given how often I'm walking friends or family through common actions on popular interfaces I would say today's interfaces are doing a terrible job of teaching users about what feature are available and how to use them.
- jlarocco 7y agoFully agree. User activated tooltips are fantastic for learning to use an application, and desktop apps without them are half assed, IMO. At the same time, I find the forced, “guided” tooltips to be invasive and annoying.
- JTbane 7y agoFor mobile devices, what ever happened to having a "HELP" tab that doesn't just open the browser to the FAQ page?