It is a channel to convey upcoming features, product changes, improvements, and bug fixes to enhance user experience and increase transparency. Being a customer-centric company, you want to value your customers and communicate every product update to them. Why do your product updates and new features not reach their desired users? Because you are not leveraging a top communication channel, “Release notes.” LaunchNotes helps your customer-facing teams communicate better by centralizing all product change into a dedicated channel.
- Release notes have become synonymous with the tech industry, but unraveling their true meaning can be confusing, especially for those new to the field.
- It may include information on system requirements, recommended settings, and any specific instructions or considerations for a successful installation process.
- By providing detailed information about bug fixes and new features, release notes empower users to make informed decisions about upgrading their software.
- They support the process of creating user guides and training materials and enhance the overall user experience.
- Release notes are a new feature for documenting new features in
OpenStack projects.
With version tracking and task assignment, you can easily see all the changes made along the way. Stick to using images that add value, and no more; including too many will make your release notes feel cluttered or overwhelming. Don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through and inject a bit of humor or warmth into your writing.
Step 4: Create Your Desired Document
Subtly weaving in your brand’s colors, logo, or typography can help reinforce your brand identity and make your release notes feel more connected to your overall brand experience. Just be sure not to go overboard – the focus should still be on the content itself. Your users may be reading your release notes on various devices, like desktops, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. Ensure your visuals are optimized for different screen sizes and resolutions so they look great no matter where they’re viewed. You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and in the case of release notes, that couldn’t be more true. Adding visuals like screenshots, GIFs, or even short video clips can really bring your updates to life and make your release notes more engaging.
Furthermore, release notes also play a crucial role in ensuring transparency and accountability in software development. By documenting all the changes and updates made to the software, release notes provide a clear and transparent communication channel between the development team and the end-users. This helps build trust and confidence in the software, as users can easily track the progress and understand the improvements being made. Another important aspect of release notes is their role in fostering transparency and accountability in the tech industry.
Standard Release v1.93 (September 18,
This can be done using short sentences and bullet points for each information section in the release note. One of the key benefits of release notes is their ability to enhance collaboration between developers and end-users. By providing a clear and concise overview of the changes made, release notes encourage users to provide feedback, report bugs, and suggest improvements. This feedback loop fosters a collaborative environment that contributes to the ongoing refinement and quality improvement of the software. If your organization has a dedicated technical writing team, they are an excellent choice for creating release notes. Technical writers have the skills to translate complex information into easy-to-understand language, which is crucial for crafting release notes that resonate with your users.
The purpose of release notes is to help users understand how the new features work and how they differ from the previous software version. The primary purpose of release notes is to improve product adoption and provide transparency about changes in a given release. Release notes also help users understand how they are impacted by these changes, leading to more efficient customer support. The release notes archive section contains a history of previous software releases.
Quality product content. In your inbox. Every week.
It also allows teams share release notes with targeted audiences and even collect, synthesize, and share customer feedback. 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. And finally, you’re going to want really great UX and a product that is easy to use out of what is a release note the box. Otherwise, your users won’t want to engage with your release notes, roadmap, or idea submission board. You should also check that the platform offers simple style customizations to make the release notes feed match your branding in just a few clicks. The role in charge of writing and publishing release notes will vary based on the size and complexity of the company.
What we mean by that is that the release note will have a title and body content, just like an article. Release notes are generally prepared by the development team, but even one person can write, such as a product manager or marketer. They can then notify regular users (through social media) and those interested in learning more (blog posts and changelogs). Include the official name of the product and the facts of your company’s registered name. Unless you know for sure that your users will easily comprehend technical/specialist language, it’s better to ease up on the jargon.
At one and two-person startups, the lead developer will be in charge of writing release notes. While at large companies, release notes might be collaboratively handled by multiple product managers and the head of product or chief product officer. Companies also have the option to deliver release notes through in-app messaging. A customer receiving an email or browsing a blog post is reading about the new features and experiencing them later. In-app messaging, on the other hand, allows a customer to read about the new product or updates as they are experiencing them within the app itself in real-time. Even though release notes provide a great deal of information about a product update or new product, they are not a substitute for other in-depth product documentation or a user guide.
Fixed a bug that prevented the Heading field from being updated in a Callout paragraph. Added a view for CMS users to search and filter Site Groups across the platform. Removed Kaltura as an option from the embed code paragraph because you can do that now through the Add Video option like you would expect. We’re focused on laying ground for future releases here, including back-end elements for new Header Hero options, improved secondary buttons, and large configuration changes. This also includes back-end requirements for launching the Drupal version of Intercom, and a new bulk delete option for site admins.