Release notes are highly important because they are a concrete place for the customers to find information about the product updates. Still, if you want your customers to actually read the release notes, they must be appealing to the eye. Intercom is a great example of a company that puts massive effort into its release notes. Each of them is formatted as a blog post, with detailed descriptions of new features and fixes. They also include a search bar for easy access and the ability to tick different boxes for product areas.
It’s a small shift but can have a profound effect on a user’s desire to engage. In fact, rejecting formality in favor of personality is a theme throughout Intercom’s release notes. We see a way to voice user opinion on each release through smiley faces (or frowny ones).
Post as a guest
Depending on the importance of the release, sales reps, customer success managers, and engineers might all want to get onboard with sharing the release. A product manager can encourage the right people on the team to post about the update and provide example descriptions as well as imagery. Because release notes, a public roadmap, and the idea board are all in one place, you have an easy way for users and customers to stay up to date with your product.
Release notes generally contain a header, overview, purpose, issue summary, steps to reproduce, resolution, end-user impact, support impacts, notes, disclaimers, and contact information.
The art of writing release notes that rock is a tricky form of writing to conquer. Fear not, this article is here to guide you through writing perfect release notes and share some leading examples. While release notes for mobile apps are distributed in stores automatically, there are many ways to increase the reach of notes for both mobile and web products. Most importantly, release notes can act as an additional communication channel — something between push and e-mail. Well-thought external release notes can help you become more memorable for users. Internal release notes make potential troubleshooting and dependencies easy to fix.
They need to be written with the end user experience in mind, as much as the same thoughts lead product innovation. If you’re a product-led team or even a product-led business, then you’re probably familiar with release notes and what they’re for—no worries if not, we’ll get to that. Their official goal is to inform users about recent changes and the content of the patches/updates. When we think of release notes, we roll our eyes, remembering a dull side note met without enthusiasm by users. They’re a legal obligation that must be done, but they’re done without too much effort. Check out these examples of release notes to help you determine the style and approach for writing your own.
Treat Your Release Notes Like They’re Going to Be Read
You want to go over every detail, and with so much documentation, you absolutely must. You can also post a release note on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. It’s also a great way to promote your release note to non-users. Notice how this section is split up into bullet points with short paragraphs?
It is the most significant portion since it encourages readers to upgrade to the new version. Mention the release date for the new version to the general audience. If a beta version gets planned, specify when it will be available and who will be allowed to participate. But if you look closely, you can see that the chart that visualizes every single version of the product is an amazing idea. Clément Rog is working in our Marketing team from Lyon, France. He loves geography, playing legos with his son, and sharing convictions about marketing or design.
Release notes can take on different roles in product marketing and serve a broader purpose. Your team can use release notes to increase engagement, build excitement around your entire product, and extend your reach to new audiences. Release notes are a robust sales and marketing tool, so who writes them is very important for who they are written. Don’t cut corners on your release notes—they’re your chance to share the culmination of your hard work. To reap the benefits of updating users and customers about your releases, you need to distribute the notes. We recommend adding tags to your release notes because it makes your announcements feed easier to scroll through.
Release notes are a set of documents delivered to customers with the intent to provide a verbose description of the release of a new version of a product or service. These artifacts are generally created by a marketing team or product owner and contain feature summaries, bug fixes, use cases, and other support material. The release notes are used as a quick guide to what changed outside of the user documentation. Release notes describe the addition of new features, the resolution of difficulties, and the company’s enhancements to a product or software. It’s a vital approach to learn about a platform’s present condition, as well as previous updates and release versions.
A business can’t implement a new feature or changes to a software product without informing the user of the changes they’ve made. Product release notes act as an user guide to inform users of everything that’s changing, why, and what new benefits this brings the consumer. When you use release notes software, you have a way to quickly publish release notes without having to ask the digital marketing or content team for approval.
- These artifacts are generally created by a marketing team or product owner and contain feature summaries, bug fixes, use cases, and other support material.
- But I do know a thing or two about why release note format is important and how to write fıtıre release notes.
- Find ways to survey your customers and get their feedback on how you’re delivering release notes and product changes.
- A changelog is the best way if you are focusing on bugs, technical details, and chronology.
- Slack takes a unique approach to its release notes, which is why many people consider it one of their favorite software release notes examples.
If you’re looking to create release notes for your product or product features, then we’ve got you covered. Use this free release notes template and start writing release notes that elevate your brand and your customers’ experience with your product. Product updates, app updates, status updates, or new features come into play here as well.
Think through how you can communicate your values, add some humor, or make your users smile. One of the ways is to send users a push notification or some sort of in-app messages, such as a pop-up banner. You must still wear socks” — although these don’t convey any additional information, https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ they fit the storytelling perfectly and make the read more captivating. Their first paid plan starts at $49 per month and includes widgets and email notifications, but no segmentation. You should only have 2-4 tags so that you don’t overwhelm your users with too much complexity.
AnnounceKit doesn’t offer public roadmap management or user feedback collection, meaning you’ll have to piece together lots of different tools. Release note software allows you to quickly publish new release notes without having to ask the marketing team to publish something for you. Every release note should be written like an article or blog post—except much shorter.
If there is a beta version coming out, mention when it will be available and who will be eligible for beta testing. Issues/limitations/challenges — In this section, you should talk about all the limitations and obstacles you experienced while completing these changes. Introduction — The introduction should briefly describe the changes and the product.
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