Announcing! New Feature!

This question was asked, "When your company releases a new version of software, how do you announce its new features?" and this is how I answered it:

I believe there are two audiences that need to receive information about new features.

First, these 'cool' new features need to be defined as cool so that the user that doesn't use the software daily would be impressed. Mike pointed out Marketing should be involved and for these new users, I 100% agree. But I'd go a step further and say it is our job to at least consider, if not to implement, a means for those 'cool' new features to shake down to the everyday user. This should come through as release notes or end-user documentation or a cheat sheet or something.

I'm thinking of a simple example. Say Suzy Clerk has to enter comments on 100 records a day. In version 1.0, Suzy has to select a record and click the Change button. A new screen displays. On this new screen, she clicks Enter Comments. A pop-up window displays. She enters her comments. Three clicks to get to where she does her job.

Now, in version 2.0, she can right-click a record and select Enter Comments. The same pop-up window displays in one click. You just saved Suzy two clicks per record so, net, 200 clicks a day. That's efficiency in the software that Suzy needs to know.

Now, our job is to communicate that we can save her those 200 clicks the first day she uses Version 2.0. If this was only in a Marketing flyer, would Suzy read the marketing info? Maybe. Maybe not. That's what you need to figure out. What if she's a lower level user who doesn't make decisions regarding whether to even upgrade - maybe she just comes in every day and does the task of entering comments every day. She doesn't even know what version of OS she runs - she doesn't care. Maybe Suzy's boss's boss makes the decision whether to upgrade to version 2.0 and that person doesn't have a clue that Suzy Clerk clicks so many clicks a day. What else could Suzy do if she could finish her work in 4 hours instead of 8 (no idea how long it takes to enter 100 comments - this is just for the sake of argument.)

So, I guess, your question has no direct answer and will depend upon how you communicate with the "Suzy Clerk" user so that she doesn't hear about this new functionality at the end of a 5 day work week when she's already clicked 1000 times more than she would otherwise need to, had she known about this new feature. That's when we, as technical communicators, ask, 'what is the best way to let her know?' Does it go in the UI as some sort of message? It may mean working as a collaborative group with QA, Marketing, Development, or someone else.