You’ll be able to demonstrate how dedicated your staff is to improve it. If you give visual context, it will be easier to absorb information. Users are customers who are always curious about what this can achieve for them. However, even technical readers’ attention spans are shorter these days than they were previously.
As technology evolves at a rapid pace, there’s a growing need to establish fluid and regular communication with users. With the adoption of Scrum & Kanban processes and domination of the SaaS mode, release frequency is higher than ever. But your product is only relevant if users know about its updated features and benefits. A vital tool for software development teams, release notes are used to communicate new features, improvements, and bug fixes to users and help them understand the advantages. They also assist marketing teams to refresh the product’s sales template and set the agenda for future improvements for the development and QA teams. To fully understand the importance of release notes, let’s dig deeper to know how they are created, who prepares them, and their essential elements.
Release notes are an opportunity.
Be specific, and use media such as photographs and videos of the new features to support your claims. You can use release notes as a way to promote your brand messaging, but don’t overdo it with heavy self-promotion. Too much self-promotion can erode a customer’s trust in your brand. But can you sneak a little self-promotion into your release notes to help boost your brand’s messaging. This document also supports the process of maintaining end-user experience, user guides, and training materials. It’s an important way of understanding the current state of a platform, see past updates and release versions.
- By showcasing your development efforts in your latest releases, they help you stand out from the competition.
- Issues/limitations/challenges — In this section, you should talk about all the limitations and obstacles you experienced while completing these changes.
- Now that we have covered the basics of release notes, let’s delve deeper into their significance.
- If they’re too vague, readers won’t understand the upgrades and might bypass new features.
Use the latest version of the nRF Programmer app of nRF Connect for Desktop to update the modem firmware. Release notes must be written in simple language because the readers are not always tech people. Adds the ability for certain users to embed Tagboard social media views. Pages with Tables in them were causing problems for users on smaller screens of tablets or phones.
Standard Release v2.22 (February 4,
This saves both developers and users time and effort in diagnosing and resolving technical issues. Release notes are often overlooked but are an essential aspect of software development, providing invaluable information to users about changes, improvements, and bug fixes. Break your release notes into sections based on the type of updates, like new features, improvements, and bug fixes.
You can create an in-app widget to add to your public-facing website as well as your web-based application. Check out these examples of release notes to help you determine the style and approach for writing your own. Frill is known for it’s great UX, simple design, and select features.
By providing a clear record of completed tasks and updates, release notes help project managers identify areas where additional attention or resources may be needed. They also provide a historical record of your software updates, making it easier for your team and users to track progress and understand the evolution of your product. This can be particularly helpful for onboarding new team members or for users who need to reference past updates.
Considering Jira’s standard audience, it’s preferred, as developers need considerable data to understand updates fully. Archbee is well-optimized for all these use cases, so the setup is straightforward, enabling your users to quickly what is a release note find the release notes. This setup presents a general overview of the company’s progress, both recent and upcoming. Finally, if you have a large social media following, tell your followers about the new release notes on your profiles.
Depending on the release, you can send the email to your entire user base, or only a relevant segment. The CEO of DesignFiles, Sheilah MacSporran, does an excellent job of humanizing the release email. By having those core features in one place, you can streamline your workflow for implementing user feedback. And also make sure that the software you choose allows users to upvote and comment on ideas. This helps you choose which submitted ideas to prioritize over others.
In a competitive software market, transparency and communication are key to building trust and credibility. Failing to provide release notes gives the impression you’re not committed to continuous improvement or that you’re not being forthcoming about the changes you’re making to your software. First and foremost, release notes provide a concise summary of the work completed during a specific development cycle.
