When launching a product, you spend a lot of time and resources to gain users. Despite your best effort, sometimes user retention is very low. A well-developed onboarding process helps users familiarize themselves with your product in an intuitive manner. This article will explore the onboarding experience, its importance, components, and process.
What is User Onboarding?
User onboarding is the process of orienting and familiarizing new users with a product. It provides the necessary directions and information to get started.
Triple A’s for Successful Onboarding
Accommodating – giving the user tools they need to use your product
Mistake 1: Assuming you need to know programming to create an onboarding process
3rd-party user onboarding tools can help you create interactive walkthroughs, in-app messages, checklists, self-help centers, and more without any coding
- All without coding
Not Celebrating User’s Success
Celebrate when a user completes a meaningful task on your product with a compelling or funny success message to build a positive relationship with the product
The Onboarding Process
The unique and tricky part of designing an efficient onboarding experience is that typically it happens only once, right after a user decides to try out the product.
Using the Immersion Method in Onboarding UX
Instead of recruiting users as participants, you act as the user
- You know a lot more about the product than the users
- This allows you to consider the first impressions of your product from both perspectives and identify users’ pain points and take action
Handling One-Time Setup
Your onboarding process should take care of a one-time setup such as choosing a username, setting up a profile picture, etc
Common Onboarding UX Mistakes that can Create Churn
User onboarding experience directly influences user churn, which is responsible for the ultimate success of your product.
How to Apply Immersion Practices into the Onboarding Process
Develop a checklist of the goals
- Take notes on your use of the product and your very first impression of welcoming
- Simply use the product
- Explore if your onboarding UX is clearly demonstrating product features and values
Importance of an Efficient Onboarding Experience
The onboarding process has a direct influence on user retention rate.
- When users sign up or download an app, they expect the product to make their lives easier somehow.
- If people don’t know about or how to use the product, they will abandon it.
Mistake 2: Thinking “Onboarding” is the last thing to design
Think about onboarding users to each feature as you design/develop
Not providing guidance
Use short walkthroughs to welcome users or use some tooltips to provide hints. This way, you accelerate the user’s learning process.
