User Onboarding Essentials: A Guide for Product Managers.

The first experience a user has with a product can make or break their decision to continue using it. By carefully designing and optimizing…

The first experience a user has with a product can make or break their decision to continue using it. By carefully designing and optimizing the onboarding journey, product managers can increase user engagement, reduce churn rates and ultimately drive product adoption and success.

In this article, we will explore the intricacies of user onboarding and offering insights on strategies, key steps involved and best practices to optimise this crucial aspect of the product user journey.

What is User Onboarding?

User Onboarding refers to the process of guiding new users through the initial steps of using a product or service to help them understand its features, functionalities, and benefits. It involves introducing users to the core elements of the product, facilitating account setup or registration, providing guidance on how to navigate the interface and assisting users in achieving their desired outcomes.

The goal of user onboarding is to create a positive and seamless experience for new users, enabling them to quickly get started with the product and derive value from it.

Why is User Onboarding Important?

1. Influences initial impressions and perceptions:

Users form quick judgments about a product based on their initial interactions. A well-designed onboarding experience can leave users feeling confident and excited about using your product, whereas a poor onboarding experience can lead to doubts or skepticism. Providing a seamless and intuitive onboarding process creates a positive first impression what would greatly contribute to the user committing to using your product.

2. Enhances user satisfaction, retention, and conversion rates:

By guiding users through the initial steps of using your product and helping them understand its value proposition, you increase the likelihood of them becoming satisfied, engaged and loyal customers. A positive onboarding experience can also reduce the likelihood of users abandoning your product early on, leading to higher retention rates and increased conversions.

3. Provides guidance for users to derive value quickly:

The primary goal of onboarding is to help users understand how to use your product effectively and derive value from it quickly. By providing clear instructions, tutorials and guidance during the onboarding process, you empower users to explore the features and functionalities of your product and start achieving their desired outcomes.

4. Minimises churn rates:

Churn, or the rate at which users stop using your product, is a critical metric for any business. Effective onboarding can help minimise churn rates by ensuring that users have a positive experience from the outset. By addressing users’ needs and expectations early on and helping them overcome any initial challenges, you reduce the likelihood of them abandoning your product and seeking alternatives.

Key Steps in a User Onboarding process

1. Welcome and Orientation: The onboarding process typically begins with a warm welcome message or greeting, accompanied by an orientation that familiarizes users with the product’s brand identity, mission, and core values. This sets a positive tone for the user’s journey and helps establish a connection with the product.

2. User Registration/Account Creation: For products that require user accounts, the registration process is a fundamental aspect of onboarding. This step involves collecting necessary user information while minimizing friction to encourage completion. Clear instructions, intuitive form design, and optional social sign-in options can streamline this process.

3. Product Tour/Tutorial: Providing users with a guided tour or tutorial is essential for making them familiar with the product’s features, functionalities, and user interface especially if your product offering is complex. This can take the form of interactive walkthroughs, tooltips, or video demonstrations that highlight key components and demonstrate how to use them effectively.

4. Personalization and Customization: Tailoring the onboarding experience to individual user preferences and needs can significantly increase engagement and relevance. This may involve collecting initial user preferences during registration, providing personalised recommendations, or offering customizable settings to adapt the product to each user’s unique requirements.

5. Clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs): Clear and concise CTAs guide users through each step of the onboarding process, prompting them to take specific actions such as completing their profile, uploading a profile picture, exploring key features, or subscribing to newsletters. These CTAs should be easily identifiable, actionable, and convey the value of the action to encourage user engagement and progression within the platform.

Strategies to creating an effective User Onboarding Process.

1. Identify Key User Segments and Personas:

By identifying key user segments and personas, you can tailor the onboarding experience to cater to the specific needs, preferences, and pain points of different user groups. This customization improves relevance and resonance, increasing user engagement and retention metrics.

2. Map out the User Journey:

Mapping out the user journey allows you to visualize the various touchpoints and interactions users have with your product or service. By comprehensively understanding this journey, you can identify potential friction points and opportunities for improvement. This insight allows you to simplify the onboarding process, making it intuitive and seamless for users.

3. Incremental onboarding.

This involves breaking down the onboarding process into smaller, manageable steps allowing users to learn and adapt gradually. Instead of bombarding users with a plethora of features all at once, introducing new functionalities progressively as users become more familiar with the platform helps improve comprehension and encourage retention.

4. Provide Contextual Guidance and Support:

Contextual guidance plays a key role in guiding users through the onboarding process. Whether through tooltips, tutorials, or interactive walkthroughs, providing relevant guidance at the right moment ensures users understand key features and functionalities. Offering proactive support channels such as live chat or knowledge bases, empowers users to address queries or issues promptly, fostering a positive onboarding experience.

5. Use Gamification:

Gamification techniques, such as progress tracking, achievements, and rewards, can inject elements of fun and motivation into the onboarding journey. By gamifying the learning process, users are incentivized to actively engage with the platform. Additionally, gamification fosters a sense of accomplishment and mastery, reinforcing user satisfaction and loyalty.

6. Maximise Your Empty States:

Empty states, or screens/pages with no data or content, present a unique opportunity to maximise user engagement during onboarding. Rather than viewing empty states as a limitation, they can be used as a canvas for education and interaction. By providing helpful tips, suggestions, or examples within empty states, you can guide users on how to populate them with relevant content and make the most out of your platform or application. Visual cues and prompts can further encourage users to take action, turning empty states into valuable learning opportunities.

7. Measure and Optimise the Onboarding Process:

Continuous measurement and optimization are essential for refining and improving the onboarding process over time. Using analytics tools to track key metrics, such as user progression, drop-off points, and conversion rates, provides actionable insights into how effective your onboarding is. Through A/B testing and iteration, you can experiment with different approaches and iterate based on user feedback, improving the onboarding experience to achieve desired outcomes. In the image below are some metrics to measure onboarding success.

Top Onboarding friction points

Image by Taras Bakusevych

1. Security and Privacy Concerns:

• Users often abandon the onboarding process due to concerns about security and privacy. To mitigate this friction point, companies should prioritize data security measures, provide clear information on how user data is handled, and ensure compliance with privacy regulations.

For example: A Finance app can address this by highlighting its encryption protocols and data protection measures during the signup process.

2. Length of the Onboarding:

• Lengthy onboarding processes can overwhelm users and lead to frustration or abandonment. It is crucial to streamline the onboarding steps to make the process more efficient and user-friendly. Streamlining the onboarding flow by focusing on essential steps and minimizing unnecessary information or steps can help mitigate this friction point.

For Example: a mobile game can offer a quick tutorial level to introduce basic gameplay mechanics instead of a lengthy tutorial covering every feature

5. Aggressive Advertising or Upselling:

• Excessive advertising or aggressive upselling during the onboarding process can overwhelm users, detract from the user experience and undermine trust. To address this friction point, companies should focus on providing valuable information to users without bombarding them with sales pitches. A user-centric approach that prioritizes user needs over sales can help reduce this friction.

For Example : An e-commerce website should avoid bombarding users with pop-ups for unrelated products and instead focus on providing a seamless shopping experience.

6. Paywall Before Value Realization:

• Requiring users to pay or subscribe before they’ve experienced the value of the product can deter them from completing onboarding. Offering a free trial or demonstrating key features before asking for payment can help users see the value upfront.

For Example: A subscription-based news website preventing users from accessing any articles until they’ve signed up for a paid subscription may deter users from experiencing the quality of content offered.

7. Unnecessary Questions Without Clear Rationale:

• Asking users for unnecessary information without explaining why it’s needed can lead to frustration and distrust. Clearly communicating the rationale behind each question and only requesting essential information can improve the onboarding experience.

For Example: A social media platform asking for users’ home addresses during onboarding without explaining why this information is needed may lead to user confusion and reluctance to provide the requested details.

8. Forcing Account Creation Too Early:

• Requiring users to create an account or sign up before they have had a chance to explore the product or service can be off-putting. Allowing users to browse or try out features without account creation can lower barriers to entry and encourage engagement.

For Example: A productivity app requiring users to create an account before they can explore its features or functionality may discourage users from trying out the app altogether.

9. Localization:

• Neglecting to localize the onboarding experience for different regions or languages can limit user engagement. Localization plays a crucial role in creating a personalized and inclusive onboarding process that resonates with users from diverse backgrounds.

For Example : A language learning app offering only English-language instructions and content may alienate non-English-speaking users and limit its appeal to a global audience.

Helping the user navigate the onboarding process smoothly is not just about introducing features; it’s about empowering them to achieve their goals with your product. Product managers who prioritize user success during onboarding by providing clear guidance and personalized experiences build strong relationships with users and ultimately create lasting value for both users and the product itself.