Yeah me too but to be fair technical users (we're on HN) are probably not the target end users for the product that integrates this.

I think they are good when you can both skip them and do them later. Usually you can skip them but rarely can I find a way to restart it once I’ve decided I want to commit the energy to learn the app.

Step 1: open free tier or trial account with new app I want to take a look at

Step 2: open app, see your stupid tour, close it

Step 3: click around, realize this might be what I’m looking for but more complex than I realized

Step 4: look for that maybe-not-so-stupid tour again, realize there’s no way to restart it

It’s not all that different than opening up a piece of assembly-needed furniture that arrives in the mail. Usually I look to see it I can build it intuitively before I go to the instruction manual

Yep, I agree there needs to be a way to restart a product tour

Depends on use case. When onboarding a user, it saves support emails when people can't figure out how to fulfill basic use cases. It also highlights new features that don't deserve main screen real estate but are requested.

It's only annoying when it's pointing out the obvious.

"It's only annoying when it's pointing out the obvious."

No, I find them annoying every single time.

I also find them annoying, but begrudgingly appreciate them too. Usually they are interrupting my flow to introduce me to a new non-obvious feature, and sometimes those new features are super useful.

I think they’re a design smell. If your interface is designed well, you don’t need them. If you hide features behind cute-but-meaningless icons with no text tooltips, you users will still struggle to find them even with an irritating onboarding tutorial.

How would your users find out about a new feature on a page that's tucked away into a menu without one of these?

Patch notes? You can give users some bullet points to read when they run a new version for the first time, without railroading them into clicking through the menu structure.

Also maybe keep the menu structure logical so that users can actually discover functionality by looking through the menu, like we did in the old days before semantically relevant text was replaced with tastefully ambiguous generic pastel icons.

Usually feels like a crutch for bad design, but some products just have a certain level of complexity

When it comes to UI concepts I've seen this and popups about downloading the app and email lists and downloading the app and following them on social media and downloading the app called "the nag" a couple of times probably because calling it the "fuckyou" is too many letters.

There isn't a fine line between helpful and hostile, there's a big honking obvious one with flashing lights and sirens on it.

An alternative I saw not too long ago was an app with a sort of "discovery" button. By clicking it, anything you click afterwards will be explained and tutorialized a bit.

So if you want to jump in right away, you can. But if you go "What does THAT button do? What is THIS menu for?" it's great. It goes more at the users pace rather than bombarding them with info.

No, but also a lot of users enjoy them. It's like marmite, you either love it or hate it.

Also note that most product managers love them.

Quite often they are a symptom of a UI that isn't descriptive to particularly discoverable.

Most HN users likely do. But HN users are not representative of overall population.

Should be optional and you should be able to start it if needed.