In order to successfully onboard a horizontal product, we need to increase their skill over time to keep up with their changing goals.

New users do not yet have the vocabulary to understand the appNew users do not yet have the vocabulary to understand the appImagine that you are in a foreign country where you don't speak the language. You're hungry and you need to ask someone on the street where to buy some food. You don’t have the words to say it, but you can probably rub your stomach and people will know where to point you.

If the app has sufficiently unique features or design, then encountering those will be like hearing words from a foreign language. If the features or design are familiar carryovers from other products that people are used t..., but as User skill level increases over timeUser skill level increases over timeImagine that you have just started to use Excel or Photoshop. Both of those apps have an insane amount of functionality, and it would be unreasonable to expect the user to understand what is possible and how to do it immediately. Over time, with continued User Involvement, they will simply grow more comfortable with the app.

The most successful app adoptions come from a project, because they give the user a reason to increase their skills. As they work on their projects, they'll bump up agai..., so does their vocabulary. They are able to conceptualize and express desires that they couldn’t express before, so User goals change over timeUser goals change over timeA user’s goals 1 week into using your app and 6 months are rarely the same. “Elder users” often won’t even retain the goals that they had at the start of their experience. Apps with continued user involvement enable the user to accomplish multiple goals to maintain users through full goal transitions.

New users do not yet have the vocabulary to understand the app. User skill level increases over time, giving the user new vocabulary to conceptualization and express desires that they didn’t ha.... This points towards the need for a Continuous onboardingContinuous onboardingHorizontal products like Notion, Airtable, Excel, and Obsidian are all powerful/flexible and require learning and expansion of use cases over time to wrap your head around them. Given that, why do they only teach people how to use the app for the first few minutes?

It's not just horizontal products though. Continuous Onboarding applies to most apps that aren't just "open, press a button, and close." Are you continuing to add features over time that would benefit users that are more than a mo... that progressively reveals information as the user develops so they are always becoming more effective users. Even through behavioral tracking, it can be challenging for the app to recognize exactly what the user wants to learn at any given point. This means that there has to be a solid framework for exploratory search, where the user can find what they are looking for on their own or with the help of other users.

The hard problem of onboarding horizontal products