In-app release notes
Every time we released a new update, I wrote our in-app changelog. It was fun and friendly, but still technically authoritative.
🌍 Go to Current RMS changelog
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- Images and videos may seem big because it’s designed to be embedded in a modal inside our app.
- I left in December 2020, so more recent updates are not written by me.
Our customers asked for more information about our roadmap and what we’d released. I worked with the devs and product to launch a changelog.
I was bedded into a dev team, so I’d chat to the devs daily, review technical specs, and check commit messages to create customer friendly content. A lot of the time I’d have to distill big technical changes into a couple of sentences.
I drafted content in Google Docs, then we published it using Markdown and Jekyll on a page on our website. We embedded this page in a modal in-app.
Changelogs are a great way to have a bit of fun. I’d often sneak pop culture or sci-fi references for our customers, waiting to see who’d be first to message in. Sometimes we even got shares on social media about them—great publicity for us!
It also boosted dev team morale, as smaller updates that we didn’t used to shout about got a bit of press.
Impact
- 🎁 Engaged our most loyal customers who loved to know the little details.
- ✨ Demonstrated the value of a software subscription; it's always getting better!
- 🚀 Boost for dev team morale, as customers could appreciate how often we released updates.
- 🦄 Great chance for us to show off a bit of personality.