Onboarding

The next area where I think games have a lot to teach product designers is in onboarding . Many games follow the path of slowly revealing the complexity of a system over time, giving the player just enough to do that they're engaged but not overwhelmed. Often this is a continual process that happens across the entire span of the game. Multiple... See more

We used the "Ikea effect" to increase conversion by 82%. Here's why and how. The Ikea effect is a "cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created". We wanted to do 2 things in our... See more

Putting yourself in the mind of someone who is coming to Slack for the first time — especially a real someone, who is being made to try this thing by their boss, who is already a bit hangry because they didn’t have time for breakfast, and who is anxious about finishing off a project before they take off for the long weekend — putting yourself in... See more

Your objective should always be to eliminate instructions entirely by making everything self-explanatory, or as close to it as possible. When instructions are absolutely necessary, cut them back to a bare minimum.

Every product needs a solid activation experience. Done well, they can mean hugely successful conversion from discovery to sign-up for your app. Here's a breakdown of Duolingo's legendarily strong activation experience. Complete activation experience breakdown in... See more