How to use UX design to inform your onboarding processes
Are you seeing low user retention after a product trial or poor conversion rates from free to paid-for plans? Does customer feedback tell you your product is difficult to use, or there’s too much friction through the user journey?
Great digital products are made with the end user in mind - not just at ideation or inception, but through the entire development process.
So, whilst you may be focussing on winning or converting newer audiences into paying customers, take some time to shift your attention towards a smooth and user-friendly onboarding.
That’s where UX/UI design can help.
User Experience design
Being able to understand the User Experience is a powerful tool. It enables us to create well thought out interactions and experiences that are based on the needs of our audiences. And it can have some pretty big impacts on your business.
For example (spoiler alert) we designed and created a process, driven by data, that took Trouva’s onboarding process down from weeks to minutes. That’s an incredible reduction in time and resources needed! You can read more about this client further down below.
UX benefits
By following basic UX practices when thinking about your onboarding process you will also see:
Increased engagement from users
Higher rates of customer retention
Quicker understanding of your product’s value
Higher conversion rates (i.e. from free/trial product to the full, paid for version)
More positive referrals from delighted customers.
The bottom line? All of these longer and shorter-term benefits will lead to additional revenue being generated.
By applying UX processes to customer onboarding you are not only creating a successful, initial interaction, you are providing an intuitive, user-centred solution that will be used time again.
5 benefits of following UX practices when designing onboarding processes
How UX design creates great onboarding experiences
Onboarding experiences should be interactive, intuitive, action-oriented and educational if they are to be successful (Userpilot).
What we often see, however, are overly lengthy onboarding processes that bore or frustrate users, provide little to no guidance and are littered with tech issues and inconsistent visual hierarchies! All of which are likely to contribute to user drop-off after the initial sign-up and poorer outcomes for you, and your users.
But how does a UX-informed onboarding design maximise user engagement and retention?
By employing deep user research to provide data (truth) and context, beyond the assumptions of the business.
It makes your product easier to use
Research shows that ‘ease of use’ is cited as the most important for mobile apps by 97% of users (Userbrain). This is a critical factor for any product, app, website or service put out there.
If it isn’t easy to use, it won’t be used. It’s as simple as that!
By researching how your target audience engages with your (and/or competing) products, you can gain a better understanding of their needs and expectations of how your product should behave.
Using this knowledge to inform your design means you can create an easy to use solution that will ensure customers return time after time, rather than discarding it after a fractious first encounter.
It makes your product more useful, meaningful and engaging
By truly understanding your customers, you can build a product within their context – not your own. Data-driven design and validation is key here so as to not get caught up in your own assumptions of what your audience thinks or needs.
Using research to identify user preferences and pain points enables you to tackle them directly, ensuring your solution better meets their requirements and is the product of choice over your competitors’.
It makes your product right, the first time
Ever used a new app for the first time to find it’s clunky and not fit for purpose – only to see an additional update release soon after?
Implementing testing during your product’s development means that any friction in the user journey, as well as other usability issues, are highlighted prior to launch.
Not only does this mean you create the right product for the right audience, but you build faith and trust in your company and brand, too.
Remember: usability testing will save you time, money and reputation in comparison to costly changes post-launch!
Tips for your onboarding processes
We’ve established that a UX-based design is probably the right way forward for you. Now what?
Based on the main components of a successful onboarding process here are some tips when considering the design components:
Keep it intuitive
Intuitive design creates effortless experiences for your users. It can make the difference between an interaction that feels like a chore and one that flows naturally.
Help keep your onboarding intuitive by keeping registration or sign-up processes as simple and quick as possible. Save you and your customers valuable time by reducing the number of steps they need to complete in order to sign up – lengthier processes will see more drop-offs.
Offering social media or single sign on (SSO) options not only makes the authentication process easier, but contributes towards a smoother experience overall.
Keep it interactive and educational
Interactivity and educational components are crucial if you want to keep your users interested in completing your onboarding process.
Create interactive, educational experiences by using walkthroughs and on-screen tutorials – this way you can guide users through the key features of your app or product (showcasing its value) whilst onboarding new users.
Be mindful not to offer too much information though, as this may result in users who don’t complete the sign-up process. Instead, you could employ small pop-ups each time a new button is pressed or action completed, rather than delivering everything the user needs to know in one go.
Users want to be educated, not overwhelmed!
Keep it action-oriented
If you’re wanting to take a user from point A to point B, you need to be encouraging progression throughout the process.
This might look like gently persuading users to complete specific actions or tasks during onboarding to familiarise themselves with the app.
Gamifying mechanics might work well for you here – you could involve progress bars, badges, checklists or other incentives to help highlight the path to completion. This is especially useful if there is a user input requirement to ensure they get the most value from your product.
Keep it engaging
I know I alluded to 4 key components, but I would be remiss to not include this point.
Onboarding processes (especially those with multiple steps) need to be engaging.
Use tools like welcome screens to build up a better picture of each specific user and enable them to create their own personalised onboarding experience, based on their needs, priorities and interests. You could provide options to customise settings, pick preferences, or select relevant content categories.
Personalisation is something widely discussed when talking about digital products or exclusive membership dashboards and it can definitely apply to onboarding practices, too.
When done well, UX design can make the onboarding process (and eventually the product) much more engaging and relevant to individual users – we’ve seen some huge improvements by first focusing on what is and isn’t working for our clients’ users.
Our work with Trouva
Who are Trouva and what do they do?
Trouva is the online shopping platform that connects consumers with independent boutiques and brands. They came to us wanting to take control of their lengthy retail partner onboarding process which depended on third party subscriptions to get the job done.
How did we apply UX design to their onboarding process?
At Hancock & Rowe, deep user research guides us through everything we do – that’s how we managed to reduce Trouva’s onboarding time from a whopping 21 days down to just 20 minutes
By analysing extensive user research we were able to pinpoint why and where processes were lagging to provide a much quicker, more engaging solution that was mindfully created for the end user.
For Trouva this was a company-owned, end-to-end, self-managed and simplified process used to oversee the creation of accounts and a revised, digital contract creation and signing process when onboarding new retail partners.
The solution was a world away from their previous way of working which involved a whole host of time-consuming, manual processes which relied on expensive subscriptions from third-party platforms.
Image of a laptop displaying Trouva's login set-up page
Screenshots of various onboarding steps including open times and boutique profile areas.
The project ultimately included
4 week turnaround. 12 page designs. 2 prototypes. 1 new platform. 0 third party integrations.
Most importantly, what did our client have to say?
“Our Boutique platform is complex and can take time to understand. Hancock & Rowe came in and picked up on things immediately. Their comprehension was incredible and was visible in conversations and meetings. They took our Boutique platform from something barebones to something that was thoughtful and intentional.”
Farhana Ali – User Experience Lead, Trouva
Final thoughts
A badly designed onboarding flow and lack of information about how a product works only results in negative outcomes: namely low adoption rates and poor user retention.
When you centre your customers at the beginning, middle and end of your development process you will see the numerous positive impacts UX design has on your company’s, and your customers’, outcomes.
So, remember to keep your digital products and onboarding processes intuitive, interactive, educational, action-oriented and engaging.
By focusing on these aspects, you can create an initial positive experience and increase user engagement for the long-term retention of your users.
For more insights see the following blog entries:
Want to start developing a great digital product?
Book in a FREE 30 minute session with our UX Director, Jason Hancock.
