Principles for New User Onboarding

A successful onboarding is ultimately about getting your users onboard with your idea. Get that right and the rest will follow.

In a world of moving fast and pushing out a “minimum viable product,” the first mile of a product’s user experience is almost always an afterthought. The welcome/tour, the onboarding, the explanatory copy, the empty states, and the defaults of your product make up the first mile. Ironically, these crucial components of initial engagement that make ... See more

The ability of a brand new user to understand and complete the core workflows of a product determines whether your product delivers immediate value to your customers — Day 0 value. If a tool is not useful, people will simply not come back. This is what makes onboarding the most critical part of any growth strategy — successfully onboarded users ret... See more

When onboarding goes well it should be seamless, intuitive, and informative. Users should have a good understanding of what’s to come within the app, how it works, and why they should be using it.

very few customers get on-boarded and primed to the point where they know three things: (1) why they’re there, (2) what they can accomplish, (3) and what to do next (note: users don’t need to know how to use your product at the beginning, they just need to know what to do next!). Once a new user knows these three things, they have reached “The Zone... See more