Feature discovery
Get users onto what you just shipped. Point at new features the moment they're relevant with tooltips and hotspots, or announce them with a modal — so nothing you build goes unnoticed.
How teams use Wakeline for this.
Spotlight the new thing
Drop a hotspot on a new button to draw the eye without interrupting.
Explain in context
Anchor a tooltip that explains the feature right where it lives.
Announce the big ones
Launch a modal for major releases the moment users log in.
Live in three steps.
Target the right users
Show it to the people who'd benefit.
Point at the feature
Tooltip, hotspot, or modal.
Measure adoption
Watch clicks and completion.
Launching one feature to the users who need it.
You shipped saved filters. The users who filter daily should hear about it; everyone else should not. That asymmetry is the whole craft of discovery.
Define the audience by behavior
A segment on a filters_used_30d trait greater than 10 — people who demonstrably have the problem this feature solves. Broadcasting to everyone else is how announcement fatigue starts.
Drop a hotspot, not a modal
A pulsing beacon on the new "Save filter" button. Heavy users notice it in their own time; the card explains in two sentences and offers "Got it" with don't-show-again.
Advance on the real click
For the subset who open the card, the next step advances when they actually save a filter — the feature is learned by using it, not by reading about it.
Read adoption, not impressions
Click actions show who engaged; your own analytics show saved-filter usage climbing in the segment. Impressions are vanity here — usage is the verdict.
What to expect: The feature reaches its natural audience without taxing anyone else. Repeat per launch and you build the compounding asset: users who trust that when Wakeline points at something, it is relevant to them.
When not to use this play.
No pattern fits every job. Here’s where we’d point you at something else — sometimes ours, sometimes not.
Announcing everything to everyone
If every release gets a hotspot for all users, beacons become wallpaper within a month. Ration attention: target by the trait that predicts caring, and let minor changes ride the changelog.
Features that sell themselves
A button labeled clearly, placed where the need arises, may need no announcement at all. Save discovery guides for value that is genuinely non-obvious — power features, workflow changers, things behind menus.
Compensating for bad placement
If nobody finds the feature because it is buried four menus deep, a permanent hotspot is a confession. Move the feature; use guides for the introduction, not the excavation.
What's the best surface for announcing a feature?
Match intensity to relevance: a hotspot for ambient discovery among likely users, a tooltip in a tour for guided context, a modal only for launches that change how everyone works. The graduated approach keeps modals meaningful.
How do I reach only the users a feature is for?
Segments on behavioral traits — usage counts, plan, role — sent via identify(). "Users who filter more than ten times a month" is a two-clause rule, and it is the difference between discovery and spam.
How do I know discovery actually worked?
Click actions tell you who engaged with the announcement; your product analytics tell you who used the feature after. Measure the second — an announcement with high clicks and flat adoption means the feature, not the guide, has the problem.
Users still don't know features exist — what am I missing?
Usually timing: announcements at login about features whose moment comes later. Trigger on the context instead — the page, the event, the workflow where the feature applies — so discovery lands exactly when it is useful.
Put this to work.
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