After purchasing Calcbot, by Tapbots, I was greeted by a few introductory help screens. Since this is just a calculator, one might think that showing some help screens, instead of a calculator, is bothersome. I don’t. I actually thought it was a nice touch. It only takes a few seconds to swipe through the screens and I’m calculating. And Tapbots just showed me a sense of caring for their new users to boot.
As a user experience researcher with a heavy emphasis on mobile websites and apps, I see confusion and frustration for first time users all the time. Despite reading the app description, mobile users repeatedly enter an app for the first time and ask me what the app is for. It usually takes them a bit of exploration to start to get the purpose of the app. Sometimes this helps, other times it proves to further frustrate. I see users get frustrated when they start an app with an expectation and discover that the designers of the app had something else in mind.
Many users have told me that they want a few initial help screens to orient them, or at the very least, a decent help page.
What do you think? Do you like these kinds of intro help screens?