Always Be Onboarding: Creating Community Arcades

Onboarding at every stage: So you have your first 100 members, created a delightful onboarding experience that welcomes your members without overwhelming them, and drafted documentation. Now what? Onboarding is an ongoing process. Onboarding happens to some extent at every stage of a community member’s journey. Humans aren’t static, so

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"Builder communities" that are oriented around an activity? (making open source software, playing Minecraft, choreographing dance routines, etc) Getting to know ppl by doing something alongside them is often better than milling around and talking. This was true of offline communities already, but can we now use that as a design principle for online... See more

Create a compelling onboarding experience by knowing and translating your vision to new members, making them feel welcome, and being clear about what you want them to know.

Since community members joined slowly and stuck around, there was a lot of trust and shared context in the group. Every community had a different way of working, so there was a fair amount of friction preventing users from jumping around or “surfing” from project to project.

Community means a lot of things to a lot of people. Whether it’s your local running group, a book club, your gym squad, family, or membership in an exclusive club, belonging to something is meaningful. Our identities, while obviously unique to us, are so shaped by the influence and power of community that it remains a biologically human need to hav... See more