Designing the User Onboarding Experience

Designing the User Onboarding Experience
Designing the User Onboarding Experience

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When it comes to

When it comes to a software product, you don’t get a second chance to make an excellent first impression. That precious first impression relies on an efficient onboarding experience.

A well-developed onboarding process helps users to familiarize themselves with your product in an intuitive manner. 

In the software world,

In the software world, the user makes the decision in a similar way during the onboarding process. Onboarding typically happens only once for a new user. So it’s your one-shot chance to showcase your unique features and earn the user’s trust. 

When users sign up or download an app, it is highly likely that they expect the product to make their lives easier somehow. So when they use the product for the first time, they should feel rewarded. Otherwise, they will abandon the product and forget it for good. 

Your onboarding process should

Your onboarding process should take care of a one-time setup such as choosing a username, setting up a profile picture, etc. Twitter’s onboarding process is an excellent example.

Twitter takes care of setting up interests and suggesting some accounts to explore different people’s tweets in no time. 

The second one is

The second one is “Assimilating”. It means helping users to understand how your product is intended to be used. 

The last one is “Accelerating”. It means delivering your product’s value proposition faster and better.

Essentially, user-onboarding is a

Essentially, user-onboarding is a process of orienting and familiarizing new users with a product. It provides the necessary directions and information to get started. It is a process of transforming first-time users into loyal customers. 

Three Components of OnboardingThere

Three Components of Onboarding

There are three primary components of an efficient onboarding process: 

Feature demonstration

This is where you showcase the uniqueness of your product. Highlight your competitive advantages. Be clear and concise when explaining why people need your app. 

According to a study

According to a study by Business Insider, it takes just three seconds for someone to determine whether they like you or not. All sorts of things, including intelligence and trustworthiness, are decided within this short period. 

Triple A’s for Successful

Triple A’s for Successful Onboarding

There are three A’s needed for effective and successful onboarding. First one is “Accommodating”. It means giving the user tools they need to use your product. 

CustomizationThis component is responsible

Customization

This component is responsible for personalizing your product according to users’ needs, for example, choosing news sources and categories to follow in a newsreader app. 

InstructionThis component is responsible

Instruction

This component is responsible for providing users with instructions for further usage of the product, like how they can change the profile picture or change the news interests later. 

The unique and tricky

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. There is no second chance.

So the whole “showcasing” and “engaging users” needs to be done before users start getting bored with product complexity. There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind to design a successful onboarding experience. 

Keeping users engagedIt’s essential

Keeping users engaged

It’s essential to leave the user excited to come back again after the initial setup. This is one way SoundCloud excels–it immediately shows “Top Charts” and “Featured” music that keeps users engaged and makes them explore more.  

Get them to their

Get them to their “AHA!” moments

An aha moment is the exact moment when a user realizes the value of your product. It is especially important during user onboarding, because the quicker users experience value, the faster they’ll become activated and the more engaged they’ll be.

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