Mobile Design Pattern Gallery, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7. Tutorials and Invitations

Tutorial Rules

Use Less Text, No Frontloading, Make It Rewarding, Reinforce Learning, Listen to Your Users

Invitation Patterns

Tips, 1st Time Through, Persistent Invitations, Discoverable Invitations

In the first edition of Mobile Design Pattern Gallery, I covered eight common invitation patterns. But we now know that even though these patterns are commonplace, few of them are very useful. When I had the opportunity to meet some of the leading designers at Intuit in 2012, they shared findings revealing that over half of these patterns tested poorly with their users. This corresponded with the poor results my team and I had recently gotten testing these patterns in a variety of applications, including the RetailMeNot iOS and Android apps.

Figure 7-1. First edition patterns for invitations

In a nutshell, testing showed that users tend to skip or otherwise ignore Dialogs, Tours, Video Demos, and Transparencies. At best, users find them a minor inconvenience. At worst, they can cause significant aggravation to new users who are trying to get into the app. As one RetailMeNot test participant put it, “I just want to get in the app and start exploring.”

So with this new knowledge, we begin a new chapter. The first half of the chapter is devoted to explaining ...