«Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.»
A Roman soldier in «Sandman»
The university-wide learning platform moved into the 21st century when it comes to its look and feel. But while the interface changes are nice, some things that were available via a sidebar became hidden. For people with a high affinity for technology interaction that’s not a problem, they explore a bit and find the functions. Well, unless you’re pressed for time.
So, I wonder — can’t you provide users with personalized change infos? A prior vs. now comparison of the functions the user actually used in that application. Instead of a generic one with a long list of «what’s new?», most of which is irrelevant for the user?
After all, the system can easily log which actions are done how frequently by the user. With the information which actions are now done differently, it can provide the user with a short personalized walkthrough of how to do the most frequently done actions. With a personalized help window showing a complete list (sorted first by topic, then by frequency).
This approach might avoid generic change logs which aren’t helpful, or extremely long ones, which aren’t helpful either. They also might prevent lots of frustration.
Just a thought.