Embarking on the journey of onboarding mobile-app users? Unearth valuable insights and strategies from industry veterans. Discover how to create a seamless, engaging experience that not only attracts but also retains users, driving your app's success to new heights.
Getting a user to download your app is only a small part of the battle
On average ¼ of all apps are being abandoned after the first session
- The strategy around keeping the attention (and eventually retention) of your mobile users must mean making every second, visual, and text count to meet your goals
Understand onboarding is a never-ending process
Your app should ideally always be adding new features or improving the way things are being done
- Users need to be onboarded to your changes each time
- Apply onboarding techniques to all your app changes is the key to happy customers that grow alongside your app
Identify clearly what you expect users to do
Think critically about what key parts of information a user needs to know and what things they absolutely need to do during their first session.
- Solutions: Work through the data and determine what actions are taken by users that are retained.
Take a look inward
Ask yourself, “why would a user give me this and why would they give this to me right now?” Forming a little bit of empathy for your users before asking them to give you information and do things will make for a better onboarding experience.
Design for distraction
An average session for a mobile app is less than 5 minutes.
- While some users need convincing, some enter with the desire to jump in immediately, so they shouldn’t be forced through an onboarding experience if they are already convinced
- Allow users to skip most of the onboarding if they so wish
- Make sure your app loads quickly
Ask your users the right questions
Asking users about the goals they have with your app or their experience level with certain topics will help you add or remove certain parts of the early experience to show users the most relevant onboarding information possible
Give more than you take
Develop as much trust and value to the user before insisting on getting their personal information.
- Make sure you’ve given value to your user before expecting much from them. Solution: Explain a bit more before hitting a user with a “sign in” prompt.
Find that magic moment about an app and try and preview it by asking as little from the user as possible
What is the “ah-ha” moment about your app? Once you answer that, try and deliver this by offering as little information as possible to entice users to give you more information and stay in your app longer
