Onboarding

Onboarding experiences

When it comes to onboarding experiences, there are few types of patterns, and you have to pick the one that suits your app the best as it helps you solve potential questions in the minds of users right at the start. Here are the most common onboarding experience patterns:

Guided Tours

As the name suggests, guided walkthroughs give a quick tutorial on the app's essentials to lower entry barriers by familiarizing the user with the interface and easing the learning curve. But it's important not to go overboard with this. Know where the users might need help and focus on educating them about that.

Walkthroughs

At times people may be more familiar with how your app's functionality is, so in this case, walkthroughs can be the best. This gives users quick insight into some of your app's key features without getting into the nitty-gritty.

Personalization

People enjoy tuning the experience as to what they prefer right from the start, and providing them a way to personalize upfront on the onboarding experience engages the users more. Doing this right is important. Aim to complete the personalization with as few steps as possible.

Don't Demand

Avoid asking to setup/provide too much information right up at the onboarding unless your app doesn't work without it. If possible, try to provide a choice to skip and start using the app directly as that's what users desire. Give the ability to setup/alter information later in the settings.

Always have an option to skip and not bore with too much questions.

Delight Users

Anything that requires a bit of effort but that is rewarding or beneficial to the user. Meaning make your onboarding experience enjoyable even from the smallest part. For example, Keep your copy humorous and have animations and illustrations instead of screenshots; simple things like this interest users.

Less is better

Keep it simple, short, and to the point. Onboarding experiences should not be long-drawn as it is a way to make the new users familiar with your app as quickly as possible and make them start using the app right away. The information you will put has to be valuable for the user.

Clarity

Make things obvious. Buttons should be self-explanatory and typography should be big and readable at a comfortable distance. Your content should clearly indicate what your app is about. For example, if it's a coffee app, then you should be reminded of the coffee beans, espresso, and brown colors of coffee.