Understanding Hints, Tours, and Actions

Illumate UI is built around three simple concepts. Understanding how they connect will help you build better onboarding.

Hints

A hint is a single tooltip attached to an element on your page. It has a title, description, and position (top, bottom, left, or right). Hints can live on their own as standalone hints — great for explaining confusing buttons or features users often miss.

Tours

A tour is an ordered sequence of hints. When a user starts a tour, they see "Step 1 of 5" and can navigate forward and back through each hint. When they reach the end, they see a completion screen.

Think of hints as individual signs and tours as a guided walking path connecting them.

Actions

Actions make hints interactive. Instead of just showing text, a hint can:

Combining actions in a tour creates powerful walkthroughs: "Fill in your project name → Click Create → Navigate to the dashboard."

Standalone vs. Tour Hints

Every hint can be either standalone or part of a tour:

| Type | Best for |
|------|----------|
| Standalone | Contextual help on complex features |
| Tour step | Sequential onboarding flows |

You can convert between them anytime — assign a standalone hint to a tour, or detach a tour step to make it standalone.

---

Next: How to use interactive actions