Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Product tours
Raised as a usability problem by 14 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 6 threads.
People raised many different problems with Product tours, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 15 complaints
- Product tour popups are an annoying interruption users just want to close2026-05-06
- Full-screen tours interrupt returning users and block them from using the product2026-05-06
- Dimming and blocking the UI hides context needed to understand the next click2026-05-06
- What's-new popup is confusing, distracting and hostile to users2026-05-06
- Feature announcement pop-up dialogs interrupt users and get dismissed without being read2026-05-06
- Intrusive guided tours and hover-only labels hide functions and make exploring the interface harder2026-05-06
- Tours patch an unintuitive interface instead of making features discoverable on their own2026-05-06
- Only offers doing the demo now or hiding the feature, with no way to defer2026-05-05
- Tooltips and promo modals stay up indefinitely, covering content and can't be dismissed for good2026-05-05
- Confusing final call to action; users unsure what happens next2024-02-19
- Demos teach nothing and are annoying; skip button needed to get past them2023-07-24
- Features hidden behind cute icons without text tooltips are hard to find2023-07-24
- Tutorials on open have no obvious skip or close button, forcing users to hunt for an exit2022-08-18
- Tooltip tutorials are a bad user experience that interfaces shouldn't need2013-01-25
- Tour screenshots fade too quickly, making them hard to follow2012-06-12