🚀 How to build an effective product onboarding?

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3 tactics to build product onboarding

📢 Be opinionated and guide the user

• Define the “best way” to use your product and guide every new user down that path

  • Identify the exact sequence of actions that leads to the first "aha" moment and primes the habit loop

  • Remove choices early and guide users toward the most efficient path to value

  • Distill the product value into 10-second, 1-minute, and 10-minute customer pitches to identify the most important messages for the onboarding flow

• Enforce specific behaviors through design:

  • Create a mandatory introduction video that gives the product elevator pitch and tees up the user's next steps

  • Build an on-rails experience where users must take certain actions to build familiarity

  • Have a stripped-down version of the product containing only the flows relevant to brand-new users

  • Disable or discourage inefficient habits, such as clicking menus, to force the adoption of expert workflows like keyboard shortcuts

⚠️ Command attention through interruption

• Ditch elements like checklists, tooltips and in-line nudges that become clutter and tucked away in the app

  • If it is tucked away, it will be ignored. And if it is ignored, it may as well not exist

• Consider what you might say to a user in person and interrupt only when users miss crucial concepts

  • Ensure these concepts are useful to a high enough percentage of users 

  • If you are going to disturb the user, it needs to be for something extremely valuable

  • Make it impossible to skip, but provide smart defaults so users could quickly zip through

• Time interruptions at moments of high receptiveness and avoid moments when users might lose context or progress

  • At the start: enforce essential setup before entering the product

    • E.g. when setting up a new iPhone, the entire screen is dedicated to core setup: Face ID, Location Services, iCloud login, etc)

  • Mid-journey: after initial usage when curiosity is highest 

    • E.g. Simply Piano entices you with a preview of becoming a proficient musician after your first lesson

  • Before key actions: guide decisions that shape the experience

    • E.g. Superhuman’s "Get Me To Zero" interrupts and prompts users to clean their inbox before entering it

🛝 Implement interactive learning playgrounds

• Do > show > tell; users retain far more when they have directly taken action

• Moments of interaction = build up users’ muscle memory

• Have customers use your product to learn the product; pre-load real examples users can edit, explore, and complete

• Create practice areas or safe environments to give users full control and safety to explore your product without consequences (e.g. Superhuman has a synthetic inbox where users can clear emails and hit Inbox Zero)

• Convert every key onboarding message into a simple action (e.g. toggle a setting, click a CTA, try a feature)

  • Be clear on what the action is, when it is needed, and how it can be done

  • Prioritize simplicity and safety

  • Ensure the user is protected against adverse outcomes

  • Use the mental model and assume "the user is drunk" when using your product

2 traps to avoid

🚨 Using plug and play onboarding widgets

• Onboarding widgets such as checklists and tooltips do not represent what customers need most, and do not match the nuances of your product

• Focus on what your users need to understand your product and create those through low-code solutions or a more bespoke approach

🚨 Halting onboarding innovation due to fear of backlash

• Teams working on onboarding often fear backlash from customers or from internal stakeholders

• Bold and controversial changes (e.g. mandatory explainers, default-on settings, removing “skip”) feel risky but often unlock step-function gains

• Treat changes as reversible tests with clear go/no-go framework; resistance to controversial changes drop fast when it yields +10% improvement

1 tool to leverage

📖 Best practice on product onboarding

• Users decide on whether to return within minutes of encountering a new product

• For subscription products, the majority of usage drop-off happens within the first few days; the average mobile app loses 77% of its daily active users within the first 3 days after installation

• Absorb these guides: The Elements Of User Onboarding, What is a Good Activation Rate, and the Activation sections of Reforge's Retention Series to build a good mental model for how to productize onboarding

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