 Okay, so hi everyone. Thank you for coming to my talk This is my first Academy ever and also my first big conference talk ever So if I start fumbling or talking too fast, just raise your hand and ask me to repeat what I said I won't do that So the title of my talk is obviously a huge cliche, but I'm gonna explain what it actually means in a bit First I will just briefly introduce myself You don't know me, so my name is Ivana I joined KD Promo last year as a contractor after having used KD software for a long time In KD Promo, I'm working on making sure KD as a brand and as a community gets the recognition that it deserves And on establishing a framework that will allow new contributors to easily pick up the work and carry the torch once The current contributors are no longer able to work on the project I also worked as a technical writer at a creation company called Reversing Labs It's a security company that develops software for malware analysis and detection We have some really cool technologies. Unfortunately, all our products are proprietary But we try to give back to the open-source community as much as we can And around 90% of our developers all use Linux on their computers and a lot of them use Plasma So myself included, so that's great We're also hiring, so if you're interested in developer or DevOps positions, you can ask me about this after the talk So, yeah, release notes Exciting, am I right? I'm sure I don't have to say this as everyone knows what releases are But just in case There are compilation of new features, changes And resolved issues in a particular software release In an ideal world, they would contain all this information, but in reality, they often hold it in counting Of course, this is an exaggeration and a joke but Sadly, a lot of them actually look like this, and this is you don't win friends this way But what do we actually mean when we say win friends and influence people with release notes? Well, it means you can use release notes to get people to Make it easier for them to promote your product First of all, make them interested in your product, so your software product, right? Also to leave an impression of a trustworthy product that they will be loyal to as users So why release notes are good for this? Well, because they're often the first user touch point That for your new release, so many people will tell you, oh, nobody reads release notes But, you know, everyone is still making them, everyone is writing them still So people obviously want better ones There are requests for better release notes in almost every project So obviously they have a purpose and they're the standard part of every software release package So since they're already there, why not try to transform them into something more useful and attractive? So how do we actually do this? Well, I've collected a list of five basic suggestions Of course, they are just suggestions You can find tons of ideas for improving release notes all around the internet And which advice you follow depends on what your focus is But the ones I've selected start with the following so make sure Your release notes are readable What this means is that you need to pay attention to how they are formatted and organized This will often depend on where your notes are getting published This is usually your website of your super project It's a good practice to include summary at the top of the release notes This summary can be used, for example, when you're publishing your software In an app store or in a package manager You can also use the summary on social media and then add a link to the full release notes It makes it easier for people to share it You can also order features and changes in order to open portals So how important a feature is for the user? Does it affect something major in your software or is it just a minor fix? Accessibility also matters a lot So most release notes are posted on the project website So that should give you enough control over how they're presented So you can make sure the contrast is right and the colors on the website do not hinder readability If you're including images in your release notes, make sure to have out text or captions So how this helps us win frames It makes the release notes easier to digest And people will appreciate being able to skim through the information And still get the most important parts Another thing you can do is make them reliable Reliable in the sense that people can be sure your release notes are the source of truth about your project So your release notes should be checked for technical accuracy So you don't write that something was changed when it actually wasn't Reliable in the sense that you can predict users' expectations and then you need them So they might expect extra information about your products So you link to documentation if you have it available online Or they might expect installation upgrade instructions so you provide them with the release notes Providing help and workarounds for known issues It's also a great way to establish your release notes and consequently your project as a reliable one If you stay consistent and always keep doing this You should build a great image for your project as one that cares about its users and provides support Another thing you should always be is be clear Clarity in the sense means writing your release notes So the people who are not developers can understand This may be the hardest part Because it involves involves asking Directly, you know talking directly to developers to other people who worked on the release and asked them what this particular change means for the user because When it comes down to that that's all the user wants to know what's in it for me. What does this mean for me? What was changed? How can it benefit from it? so If your release was focused on a particular feature or improvement It's a good idea to list that first and organize other points to support and illustrate that This also means you don't have to include everything if there are some minor changes that don't affect users directly You don't have to list them You can also organize release notes according to user expertise So for example this change they're important important for developers or system administrators Some things that writers that release notes often forget are new default values So if some default values configuration values change in your software it always lists that Compatibility changes and security issues are also something that people sometimes Don't include or don't give enough detail on So, um, you don't just say we just fix some security issues tell people which ones, you know, what was wrong How did you fix it? so I think we're doing a great job with plasma release notes or release announcement in this regard because we provide everything written in clear plain language and we provide also screens as illustration Another thing you can do is invite users to interact through your release So if you want to influence people to do something, uh, you also have to be very direct about it This means you have to ask them to do it Um, or provide an easy way for them to do so So this is why CTA is important to action. Um, you can ask people to download your products. Um Just give them a link or include direct sharing links for social media so they can share your release notes on their profile So you can also invite people to contribute to your project or even to improve the release notes themselves If your bug reports are public you can also link to them for every result issue So people get more context or you can invite people to report in the release notes So how this influences people it invites them to do some action and makes them feel involved in your project I think fedora is doing this really well. They ask for feedback with release notes and they also divide their release notes according to user categories Yeah, so great. So, um, this is something that works if your developers are okay with their name being published Um, and let's see who doesn't like to trade this project for it. So It's a good idea to include names of people who worked on the project Uh, thank the developers who made changes. Thank the people who tested the release who made the bug reports You can also put a name to the release notes So all this makes your project seem more human And people will be might uh, people might be more motivated to join as contributors if they see They will be directly credited for their for their work. So we have an example of this Inates, uh, he's not here, right? I'm praising Nate and he's not here So, yeah, he does these updates on the usability goal and he always Provides the name of the person who did the bug fix That's nice, but wait So benefits for you. So everything previously was um, you know for the user But how can you benefit as a project owner as a developer from better release notes? Well, um You can use them to track the progress of your project. So to put things into a historical perspective If you include images in your release notes or announcements That helps you keep keep a record of how you're how you improve your user interface, for example, or how your interface changed over time If you're hosting Your release notes on your project's website, uh, which is how it's usually done You can track user indeed so you can see how many people click through the release notes How long would they stay on the page? How long did they, you know, how much time they spent reading the release notes? Did they open links to docs maybe or links to download yourself? You can track all this if you want another thing you can do which is Provide solutions for known issues on your own website So if it's indexed by search engines, that means that search traffic gets to your own website instead of some random forum on the internet so Now I know what you may be thinking Because if you're a one small person project, you probably don't see this as a worthwhile investment Because all this advice means that you will have to spend time actually manually writing the release notes Instead of exporting them from a tracking from, you know, whatever you use for tracking zero or fabricator so This is then your opportunity to invite contributors to find people to help you create better release notes The fact is that users won't release notes. They want to understand what's new in your project They want to know what to expect from it So another fact is that Journalists or journalists will use your release notes as a source of information for their articles And you don't want them to get some info wrong and present your products in the wrong light So if I have contributors People don't need to be developers to help you. It's a great opportunity for people. For example, like me with a background in writing or humanities You can announce that you're looking for help in your community You can open a task for it in your work tracking software. You can announce to social media. You can go to our own group for streamlining, reporting, moving your troops. You can ask them for advice How do I get these new people to help me? um You can also create guidelines For people to know how to write those release notes. So you have a lot of examples. For example, mozilla has really nice guidelines for How to actually write release notes Um So, yeah, I mean in the end we all want our products to succeed and we want people to like them Obviously, so even something that may seem so small and significant like release notes Um, can really can really make a big difference in how the outside world perceives Um, our products and the work we do So That's pretty much it. Thank you for your time and attention I hope this was at least a little bit useful to you. And now I think we have some time for questions, so Any questions? Um, sorry, what? So people who shout the question at you and then you have to repeat the question Okay, I get it. Okay. If I hear what you're shouting, I'll repeat And shout it out Thank you for the question. It's a really good one So, uh, you may have seen this approach in some mobile applications. Some of them do this So when you update you get release notes for the application, right? That's what you were trying to do I I think it would be a good idea for a single application. So if for example, you update dolphin and you get Release notes for just for dolphin, but if you get it for the whole kd applications Set that might be too much. Yeah The problem with this is that it's easy to dismiss So, you know, user can just click close and never read it But on the other hand, it's more visible than posting them on a release notes like on the website, right? So, um, if you actually plan to do this, I think it would be a good idea to maybe try to test it Like do a maybe testing if you can But yeah, um, I think it's not a bad idea if you have the resources to do it Does that ask my question? Any other question? It's more of a suggestion or comment for you all If you Do a commit, you can write a change of column So we all generate the change of utility from the documents And if you write a change of column, like when you come to back column You make the release guides like easier So every kind of catch-up Fix notes for the x-axis or something, we should draw from the catch-up Just add a lot That's very nice, thank you Any questions? Yeah, so that's a great question But you have a reason to be engaged, maybe already And we, so yeah Come see me do a change of column Write a resource down on the week You're all here, so Help with release notes, you can always come to KD Promo We can actually help you, so For example, how I do it in my work And I suppose it would apply to some of KD's projects We get a role change log from the developers So not a lot of context Basically just what he mentioned just, you know, commits Titles of both requests, whatever And then we go and try to put it in human language Like explain what it means, we talk to the developers When we don't understand what some change means So what does this mean, what have you done here And then you get, you know, unable text So I don't know if that's... Yeah, so in my work, we do it in our own shared Like we have shared folders to basically Google Docs So people work on it together And here at KD, we use Usually notes.kdr So at the back, right So you get a link where everyone's making changes And you can contribute All you need is a KD identity account Which I assume you have, so There's just one thing I'd like to point out It's like, in green I actually start writing the release notes Write off the release and start adding new features In the style of time, we regret for a new release In which it will take Reminds me of the KD added Yeah, that's a great point A good practice from my experience Which is limited, you know, honestly But still, it's to, yeah To basically keep a running log of things to do So you just fill it as you go Not, you know, too long after everything's been done So yeah, that's actually a common practice thing Which maybe start doing that here If we're not already doing it Sometimes it has to do with the areas that have to do with the latest release Or the names of the developers that contributed more to this release Sorry, so you're asking if we considered using some automated tools for release notes or Well, I think I'm not sure how every key project does it But I think most of them do it that way So they export, you know, from whatever they're using They export a list of finished tasks And you get, you know, titles of these tasks as entries in the release notes And the problem with that is that they're not always consistently written So now everyone follows the same guidance, so to say For writing those titles So you always have to do some manual editing Of course, it will be ideal and much, much easier If everything could be automated But then you would have to have these guidelines at the previous step So you have to train developers, so to say To always write, you know, those titles consistently And then you wouldn't have to do so much manual editing afterwards But even without it, we would still do some manual writing after release And so what we do is we take release notes as a list And then you turn them into an announcement Which is an actual text with images similar to what I showed with Plasma So, yeah, that's a release announcement with text with context Basically, if you're speaking about release notes just as a list Things that were done, a lot of that can be automated, yeah But I'm not sure which tool would be used for that I expect there are a lot of them and that we should test them probably So does that answer your question? Okay Any more questions? Thank you Thanks