Principles to follow to design effective user onboarding for your product. Follow me at @_pulkitagrawal for more UX and user onboarding tips.

1. Be#er user onboarding
Pulkit Agrawal
Originally presented at Seedcamp (UK)
October 2015

2. The deck is about principles to use
when crea8ng good user onboarding
• Next 3 slides on who I am and how I got into this
• Then 10 slides explaining principles and methodology for
crea@ng a great user onboarding experience
• Last 2 slides with some other resources

3. my background is engineering,
business and analy8cs
Chemical Engineering at University of Cambridge –
learnt to solve problems logically
Indicorps Fellowship in rural India – helped
underprivileged youth start businesses
Management consul@ng at Booz & Company – worked
in mul@ple different industries
Analy@cs & Ops at mobile consumer startup – made
the leap to SF and learnt startups
Co-founded Chameleon – aRer experiencing the pain
of bad user onboarding
2004
2015

4. trying to learn how to use asana
pushed me over the edge
• Asana is a (well-used) project
management tool
• To learn it I watched videos and
replicated what I saw in-app
• Was a @resome experience and
I realized needed to be beWer
• They also have an extensive
help center with a lot of docs
• Seems like a good idea but is
very overwhelming
Asana intro video
Asana help docs

5. 1 month of customer development
validated need for a be#er solu8on
Founded May 2015

6. my defini8on of user onboarding is
broad (because that is be#er for you)
Between users’ first contact with, and them
internalizing value of, your product
site; ad; word of mouth, etc.

7. it doesn’t even have to be limited to
first-8me user experience!
• Can and should onboard to
different parts (features) of your
product separately
• Includes new feature releases or
changes / redesigns
• Can onboard users to become
super-users (advanced
func@onality) and fans
• Always be onboarding!
Facebook onboards me to this extended func>onality
even though I’ve been a user since 2008

8. unfortunately too oFen onboarding is
an aFer-thought, which is foolish!
Nobody cares about the thing you have
designed, unless you can get them past the
beginning. We assume it’s easy to get past the
beginning… This is the reason so many new
products and features fail.
Julie Zhuo
Director of Design,
Facebook
hWps://medium.com/@joulee

9. there are some typical methods but
best are interac8ve product tours
• Intro videos (mvp)
• Webinars / calls (b2b)
• Docs (dev tools)
• Emails (overused)
• Product tours (best)
• Swipe screens
– Sta@c (standard)
– Responsive (beEer)
• Product tours (new)

10. onboarding = teaching, so follow well-
understood principles of learning
We learn best when:
• we know why we’re learning something
• through experience
• learning is an opportunity to solve problems
• topic is relevant and immediately applicable

11. this is cri8cal so i’m transla8ng how
this should impact your onboarding
When designing your product’s onboarding:
• explain why users have to do something
• make users experience func@onality with ac@on
• don’t make it mindless; make them solve problems
• only teach whatever is immediately applicable

12. 1. Set clear objec@ves (what is “aha” moment?)
2. Iden@fy few cri@cal user ac@ons to achieve objec@ve
3. Agree minimum user input / data required
4. Synthesize into key user flow
5. Now signpost this flow in cleanest and clearest manner

13. use the hooked model to check
whether your flow is well organized
1
A call to ac@on
2
user ac@on
3
value to user
4
value from user*
*for longer-term value to user

14. a few other 8ps to note
• Have a clear path & provide strong direcAon… users will
churn at slightest hint of indecision or confusion
• Teach it in bite-sized chunks… users can only internalize
small amounts of informa@on at any one @me
• Make sure teaching is acAonable immediately…
cogni@on, memory, habits are all built on this
• Measure, assess, iterate & opAmize! big gains to be made!

15. and as a bonus: if you’re asking for iOS
permissions, do it the right way!
Read: hWps://library.launchkit.io/the-right-way-to-ask-users-for-ios-permissions-96fa4eb54f2c

16. there are a few great resources but
there are a lot more to come…
• useronboard.com: lots of examples of flows
• products: intercom (customer communica@ons), appcues
(modals & hotspots), autosend (triggered emails)
• Chameleon newsleHer – curated list of best user onboarding
and first-@me UX content monthly

17. please ask me any ques8ons… i can
even review your onboarding (for free)
@_pulkitagrawal
medium.com/@_pulkitagrawal
trychameleon.com