Getting Started Guide

What is a Getting Started Guide?

A getting started guide is an introductory document that helps new users begin using a product, service, or system. It covers foundational knowledge, initial setup instructions, and walks through basic functionality. Unlike quick start guides that focus purely on immediate action, getting started guides offer more context and conceptual understanding while still keeping the early adoption phase in mind. They help users understand not just how to do something, but why it matters.

These guides play a key role in shaping a user's first experience. When done well, they help people achieve early wins. When done poorly, users get frustrated and walk away. Getting started guides assume readers have little to no prior knowledge and need orientation to core concepts, terminology, and workflows before exploring specific features. You'll find them used for software applications, hardware products, business processes, and internal systems where foundational understanding actually affects long-term success. They often work hand-in-hand with an onboarding checklist to track a new user's progress.

What makes a getting started guide effective is finding the right balance between depth and simplicity. It needs to give users enough context to understand what they're doing, but shouldn't overwhelm them with the detail you'd find in a full user manual or training manual. This puts getting started guides in a middle ground between quick start guides, which prioritize speed over understanding, and reference documentation written for experienced users.

Key Characteristics of Getting Started Guide

• Foundational Scope: Getting started guides cover the concepts and terminology users need before they can engage meaningfully. They provide context that pure procedural documents skip, but they don't dive deep into advanced features.
• Progressive Structure: Good guides follow a logical sequence from initial setup through basic tasks to a first valuable outcome. They build confidence step by step rather than throwing disconnected instructions at the reader.
• Beginner-Friendly Tone: These guides assume no prior knowledge. They define terminology when it first appears, avoid jargon, and explain "why" alongside "how" to build genuine understanding.
• Multiple Learning Paths: Well-designed getting started guides recognize that users have different needs. They offer clear navigation between setup, core concepts, and hands-on tutorials so people can choose their own path based on how they prefer to learn.
• Success Milestones: Quality guides identify clear achievement points throughout the journey. They help users recognize when they've made progress and understand when they've completed the getting started phase.

Getting Started Guide Examples

Example 1: Software Platform Onboarding

A project management platform creates a getting started guide that introduces users to concepts like projects, tasks, and workflows before showing setup steps. The guide explains how the platform organizes information, walks through account configuration and team setup, shows how to create a first project with tasks, and wraps up with next steps for exploring more features. A quick start guide might only show task creation, but this broader approach helps users actually understand the system's logic.

Example 2: Business Process Introduction

A company rolling out new expense management software develops a getting started guide for employees. It covers policy overview, system access and login, expense categories and approval workflows, submitting a simple expense claim, and common questions. The guide gives employees foundational understanding of why the system exists and how it fits into company processes. This works better than just showing mechanical submission steps because it improves compliance and cuts down on support requests. Once employees complete the getting started guide, they can move on to more detailed how-to guides for specific expense scenarios.

Example 3: Product Feature Adoption

A SaaS company introducing a new analytics feature creates a getting started guide that explains what insights the feature provides, how it differs from existing reporting, how to connect data sources, how to explore the default dashboard, and how to customize views. The guide balances conceptual understanding with practical steps, helping users see the feature's value while learning basic operations.

Getting Started Guide vs Quick Start Guide

These guides often get used interchangeably, but they serve different purposes.

How Glitter AI Helps with Getting Started Guide

Glitter AI turns getting started guide creation from a documentation chore into an automated workflow. Teams can walk through setup processes and basic workflows while Glitter captures every step, automatically generating visual guides with screenshots, annotations, and clear instructions. This solves the traditional headache of coordinating technical writers, subject matter experts, and designers to produce onboarding documentation that often goes stale before it even gets published.

The platform makes updates fast. When interfaces change, features get updated, or best practices shift, teams can re-record workflows and regenerate guides in minutes instead of weeks. Glitter AI also helps maintain consistency across multiple products or features, so every new user gets the same quality onboarding experience no matter which part of your ecosystem they encounter first. This consistency in training documentation directly improves adoption rates and reduces time-to-value.