How to Create Engaging Release Notes
At UserVitals, you'll learn why release notes are so important, what questions they need to answer, how best to structure them, and how to share them with your users.
At UserVitals, you'll learn why release notes are so important, what questions they need to answer, how best to structure them, and how to share them with your users.
Release notes, also known as changelogs, release logs, revision history updates, .README files, or software changes, provide information about the features and enhancements of your latest product release.
Whether you're a technical writer or a project manager, it's likely that you feel a slight element of dread when it comes to writing your release notes. Release notes are often treated as an afterthought. In fact, a surprising number of software teams fail to communicate some or even all of their product changes.
However, release notes are user-focused technical documentation that showcase your team's hard work on consolidating and extending value to your users, and as such are a valuable opportunity to inform and engage your users in your product journey.
At UserVitals, you'll learn why release notes are so important, what questions they need to answer, how best to structure them, and how to share them with your users.
If you work in product management, you've almost certainly heard feedback from your users asking, "When did feature X change and why?" This is where your release notes come in by acting as a direct line of communication with your user base.
Remember, your users want to see regular updates, upgrades, and fixes to your product. Not only do these changes help you stay competitive in the marketplace, but each sprint completion or release is a new opportunity to re-engage your users and attract new ones. Therefore, release notes are not only useful for your existing users, but for potential users as well.
These important communication touchpoints create transparency between your teams and with your users because they:
First and foremost, your release notes inform your users about product changes. Specifically, they point out changes that affect the way existing or prospective users interact with and use your product.
These types of updates and upgrades include anything from a new product feature to an entirely new product.
With this in mind, when creating your release notes, you should aim to answer the core questions users have. For instance:
Based on these questions, you can apply general principles that streamline the structure of your release notes. This will ensure that they serve their purpose of being both informative and educational.
Both users and developers should be able to find important information in your release notes about updates to your product and how they affect them.
The structure of your release notes should be designed to engage the reader. Ensure that your notes contain the right elements to make them digestible, easy to navigate, and engaging.
Include in the introduction of your release notes:
For the body of your release notes, follow this simple structure that highlights key areas of user interest:
As you write each section of the release notes, make sure that each issue addressed includes the:
Keeping your release notes well structured will lead to greater engagement from your users, but what else can help boost readership?
There's little point in writing release notes that no one reads, so it's important to engage your users in what you write.
Once you've written your release notes, the next step is to distribute them so that your audience can easily access and read them.
Sharing your release notes is just as important as writing them. You can do this by including links to your release notes, sharing excerpts, or providing the entire document.
There are many release note distribution channels to choose from:
Ultimately, you want your release notes to be easy to find and up-to-date. Making your release notes public not only shows that you take user feedback seriously, but that you solicit further user feedback around your product.
The goal of your release notes is to open up communication with your users around updates and changes to your product.
Release notes provide an opportunity to share the product changes that your users have contributed to, while also providing an opportunity to solicit further feedback from them.
Ask your users how they feel about the way you provide your release notes:
On the UserVitals Customer Portal, your users can discover your product's changelog and easily add feedback in the same portal.
When creating your changelog, it's an easy process that you can customize to your liking. Our descriptions allow for many different types of text formatting, such as markup, links, highlights, and headings - and you can even add hero images.
After your customers view your new product updates in the changelog page, they can add feedback by simply clicking the Give Feedback button found on the same page. This makes it a seamless process for your customer to add their comments, and they are only visible to your team. Use this changelog feedback to further understand how they like the update or how you can improve it.
Release notes give your users insight into how their feedback and input was used to improve your features and product. They provide an opportunity to keep your users updated on the progress of your product and celebrate the deployment of features they have requested.
Learn more about how UserVitals can help you connect with your customers and keep them informed by joining our product demo today.
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