An Event Apart: “New Users Matter, Too! Designing Better Onboarding Experiences”

Krystal Higgins speaking at An Event Apart Orlando 2016 at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Walt Disney World on October 5, 2016.

First impressions matter. A good first​-​time user experience establishes a foundation for future engagement, while a bad one can mean abandonment. What kind of first impression is your product giving? This ​presentation is for anyone who designs products​​ and wants to create an experience that better engages and informs new users. You’ll get an overview of best practices as they relate to learning and engagement, including patterns and anti-patterns. You’ll also get suggestions for next steps, regardless of whether you’re starting on a fresh new ​site or ​product​,​ or revising an existing one.

Notes

  • What’s the first thing your site says, or does, to greet a new user?
  • Good introductions are more like a conversation
  • We fight to get new users but struggle to retain them
  • We have limited opportunity; Let’s not waste it!
  • By the time a user gets to our site they have already traversed a path to get there
    • They are greeted by barriers
  • Stop trying to tell people how they should experience our site or try to figure it out themselves
  • Onboarding can increase retention and engagement
  • Onboard new users with:
    1. Guided interaction
    2. Free samples
    3. Personal focus
  • Guided interaction
    • Provide just the right amount of guidance so they can have success using your product
    • Balance between being too restrictive and leaving users too helpless
    • Good guidance:
      • Facilitates exploration in an authentic space
      • Gradually engages
      • Provides actionable next steps
    • Pattern: Inline cues — Guidance embedded within surrounding content
      • Best for:
        • Content browsing
        • Supplemental education
        • Empty states
    • Pattern: User-guided tutorial — Temporary guidance triggered by user exploration
      • Best for:
        • Task instruction
    • Pattern: Playthrough — An authentic, protected space to learn core skills
    • Good guidance knows when not to overdo it
      • Avoid wasting time
      • Avoid modals
      • Avoid repetition
      • Allow escape
    • Take-home exercise: What’s your coaching cadence?
    • Hopscotch
    • Appcues
  • Free samples
    • Forced sign-up
      • May cause 54% to leave
      • May cause 88% to lie
      • When we force someone to sign up before using our site, it’s like buying a product sight unseen
      • People sign up with fake info
      • 60% would give more if they knew how it would be used
    • Reciprocity: A perceived obligation to return favors
    • Pattern: Free sample — A portion of your value proposition accessible without an account
    • “The $300 million button” by Jared M. Spool
    • Many options:
      • Drafts
      • Limited time trials
      • Free downloads
      • Guest checkout
    • Information is a form of currency
    • Take-home exercise: Whats your free sample?
    • Measure relevancy vs. cost
      • Best: Something with high relevancy and low cost
      • Worst: Something with low relevancy and high cost
    • Prompt after delivering value
    • Measure retention and engagement, not just signups
  • Personal focus
    • We tend to bombard new users with everything
    • “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” — Herbert Simon
    • Relevancy drives engagement
    • Overstimulating users has opposite effect on engagement
    • “Effective teaching involves acquiring relevant knowledge about students.” — CMU Eberly Center Principles of Teaching
    • 2 ways to learn about new users:
      • Explicitly — Learn by requesting
      • Implicitly — Learn by inferring
    • Pattern: Wizard — A series of steps in which users build their experience
      • Questions
      • Filters
      • Wizard
    • Take-home exercise: What’s your first question?
      • If we knew ? we could ?
    • Offload the rest
    • Keep leveraging that personal focus
      • After 30, 60, 90 days
      • Point out shortcuts
      • Communicate change
      • Reach lapsing users
      • …to create a platform for continued engagement
  • Don’t just onboard new users, onboard any users
  • Don’t just show—interact

Speaker Links and Resources