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I have said it before and I will say it again – I am not a developer – just an end user.

As an end user of the programs and apps you develop there is one element I, and many of my fellow end users, like when updating things on my computer and that is to know what the update is bringing to the table.

Here are some examples of poor to great release notes for Windows Store apps:

weatherupdatenotes

We know that this app has been updated in the last week in preparation for RTM however, there are not notes. Maybe they are resetting it for RTM but it is not clear based on this.

rollthediceupdatenotes

Now this is likely a new release as it indicates system compatability for the app and no other notes. It is not uncommon however, to see these same notes after an update.

goalsupdatenotes

Shows at least one specific update and a general several bugs were fixed. Better than nothing and none of us expect you to go into huge detail on the bugs you fixed but we do like to keep up with the updates.

wikipediaupdatenotes

Any surprise that a sight that concerns itself with documenting things would have great update notes? They even go back a few iterations to show what has been updated over time.

I guess the end result is that we do not want a novel but to just get a notice of an app update with no indication of what has been done it can be somewhat unsettling.

So do you prefer release/update notes or not?