Be#er user onboarding Pulkit Agrawal

OriginallypresentedatSeedcamp(UK)October2015

The deck is about principles to use when crea8ng good user onboarding

•  Next 3 slides on who I am and how I got into this

•  Then 10 slides explaining principles and methodology for crea@ng a great user onboarding experience

•  Last 2 slides with some other resources

my background is engineering, business and analy8cs

Chemical Engineering at University of Cambridge – learnt to solve problems logically

Indicorps Fellowship in rural India – helped underprivileged youth start businesses

Management consul@ng at Booz & Company – worked in mul@ple different industries

Analy@cs & Ops at mobile consumer startup – made the leap to SF and learnt startups

Co-founded Chameleon – aRer experiencing the pain of bad user onboarding

2004

2015

trying to learn how to use asana pushed me over the edge

•  Asana is a (well-used) project management tool

•  To learn it I watched videos and replicated what I saw in-app

•  Was a @resome experience and I realized needed to be beWer

•  They also have an extensive help center with a lot of docs

•  Seems like a good idea but is very overwhelming

Asana intro video

Asana help docs

1 month of customer development validated need for a be#er solu8on

Founded May 2015

my defini8on of user onboarding is broad (because that is be#er for you)

Between users’ first contact with, and them internalizing value of, your product

site;ad;wordofmouth,etc.

it doesn’t even have to be limited to first-8me user experience!

•  Can and should onboard to different parts (features) of your product separately

•  Includes new feature releases or changes / redesigns

•  Can onboard users to become super-users (advanced func@onality) and fans

•  Always be onboarding!

Facebook onboards me to this extended func>onality even though I’ve been a user since 2008

unfortunately too oFen onboarding is an aFer-thought, which is foolish!

Nobody cares about the thing you have designed, unless you can get them past the

beginning. We assume it’s easy to get past the beginning… This is the reason so many new

products and features fail.

Julie Zhuo Director of Design, Facebook hWps://medium.com/@joulee

there are some typical methods but best are interac8ve product tours

•  Intro videos (mvp) •  Webinars / calls (b2b) •  Docs (dev tools) •  Emails (overused) •  Product tours (best)

•  Swipe screens –  Sta@c (standard) –  Responsive (beEer)

•  Product tours (new)

onboarding = teaching, so follow well-understood principles of learning We learn best when: •  we know why we’re learning something •  through experience •  learning is an opportunity to solve problems •  topic is relevant and immediately applicable

this is cri8cal so i’m transla8ng how this should impact your onboarding When designing your product’s onboarding: •  explain why users have to do something •  make users experience func@onality with ac@on •  don’t make it mindless; make them solve problems •  only teach whatever is immediately applicable

1.  Set clear objec@ves (what is “aha” moment?)

2.  Iden@fy few cri@cal user ac@ons to achieve objec@ve

3.  Agree minimum user input / data required

4.  Synthesize into key user flow

5.  Now signpost this flow in cleanest and clearest manner

use the hooked model to check whether your flow is well organized

1 A call to ac@on 2

user ac@on

3 value to user 4

value from user*

*for longer-term value to user

a few other 8ps to note

•  Have a clear path & provide strong direcAon… users will churn at slightest hint of indecision or confusion

•  Teach it in bite-sized chunks… users can only internalize small amounts of informa@on at any one @me

•  Make sure teaching is acAonable immediately… cogni@on, memory, habits are all built on this

•  Measure, assess, iterate & opAmize! big gains to be made!

and as a bonus: if you’re asking for iOS permissions, do it the right way!

Read: hWps://library.launchkit.io/the-right-way-to-ask-users-for-ios-permissions-96fa4eb54f2c

there are a few great resources but there are a lot more to come…

•  useronboard.com: lots of examples of flows

•  products: intercom (customer communica@ons), appcues (modals & hotspots), autosend (triggered emails)

•  Chameleon newsleHer – curated list of best user onboarding and first-@me UX content monthly

please ask me any ques8ons… i can even review your onboarding (for free)

@_pulkitagrawal

medium.com/@_pulkitagrawal

trychameleon.com