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Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

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Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#21

Post by RobertKerans »

dhimes wrote: post #15
onion2k wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea if this is common practise, but I block any account that promotes a tweet in to my timeline so I don't see it again. If it is, and you're serving a niche market with few people who'll buy from you, promoting tweets could be a really bad idea.

So how do people reach you to sell to you? Or, to turn it around, how do you find out about new products/solutions?

That's what Twitter is really good at already, it's literally just people chatting and shouting about stuff that other people are chatting and shouting about.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#23

Post by the_duke »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #3

This article is great, and full of really helpful advice! I think the best advice for me was "Add sample data to avoid an empty nest." I just realized that my product has this problem, so I'm going to be adding some sample data for new users. I think I'll also have a toggle switch so you can easily hide all the samples. (It would be annoying if you had manually delete everything.) Concierge setup is also a great idea…

Sample data can be helpful, but in my experience, usually isn't.

What users actually want is a quick way to work with their own data.

A specialized "first launch wizard" that makes entering inital data really quick and painless is often a better choice.

It can also make sense to allow trying the product out with existing data, but for this I would offer a "demo" mode where you get bootstrap data, can play around with it, and have a big banner on top that allows launching the real thing.

This depends on the product of course, but I prefer those two options above.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#24

Post by ryandrake »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #16
onion2k wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea if this is common practise, but I block any account that promotes a tweet in to my timeline so I don't see it again. If it is, and you're serving a niche market with few people who'll buy from you, promoting tweets could be a really bad idea.

I've heard others do this as well and I don't quite understand it. If you don't want to see ads, sure maybe use AdBlock or PiHole, but why block the company? Not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you offended that the company spent money on a promoted tweet? That it was an overreach on their part?

Not a Twitter user, but isn’t that just the same as ad blocking? Company X pays money to insert their message into person Y’s life: that’s an ad.

If someone doesn’t want ads in their life and Twitter provides a tool to block them, why wouldn’t that person use the tool?

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#25

Post by kowdermeister »

wishrider wrote: post #2

But how do I get visitors in the first place, this is the first challenge. Twitter is pretty good at hiding my promotion tweets from other users...

A lucky HN or PH campaign might help for a while, but the traffic spike will calm down soon.

I'll pay for them on the long run. For me, the CPC cost will make it worth.

There are also other ideas, like launching an affiliate program, app marketplaces.

Look at where the traffic is in your niche.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#26

Post by networkimprov »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #18
networkimprov wrote: post #7

On the other hand, if you're offering something that breaks with an established paradigm -- i.e. first-time viewers don't know what to expect, a short storyboard to clarify your model might be invaluable, and worth fussing over.

I'd venture to say that breaking UI paradigms shouldn't be taken lightly. Your application is not special to me, the user. I don't want to have to learn how to use the interface of dozens of different applications because they all thought they were special snowflakes and could break established paradigms.

I was referring to application paradigms, not common UI patterns.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#27

Post by jordanpg »

onion2k wrote: post #17
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard others do this as well and I don't quite understand it. If you don't want to see ads, sure maybe use AdBlock or PiHole, but why block the company? Not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you offended that the company spent money on a promoted tweet? That it was an overreach on their part?

If you don't want to see ads, sure maybe use AdBlock or PiHole, but why block the company? Blocking the company stops the tweet appearing everywhere I see tweets. That's on my home computer, laptop, Chromebook, office computer, my phone, etc. It continues to block the ads from that company if/when Twitter work out ways around ad-blockers. And it makes me feel like I'm proactively looking after my account. I use ad bl…

I don't want to see ads, ever. I hope a growing number of people feel the same way.

I don't care about the business model of the whole internet. It is obviously a house of cards. A business model based on bad UX? I hope it collapses.

No, I don't know what will replace it. I don't care, as long as it doesn't involve ads.

I really don't care if the ads are innocuous or labeled or relevant. I don't ever want to see an unsolicited nudge to spend money on something. Ever. I can't be any more clear than this. I hope there are more like me every day.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#29

Post by lioeters »

jstanley wrote: post #8
nathan_f77 wrote: post #3

This article is great, and full of really helpful advice! I think the best advice for me was "Add sample data to avoid an empty nest." I just realized that my product has this problem, so I'm going to be adding some sample data for new users. I think I'll also have a toggle switch so you can easily hide all the samples. (It would be annoying if you had manually delete everything.) Concierge setup is also a great idea…

Instead of adding sample data when the initial view would be empty, I prefer to replace the empty view with a message about what the user should be doing first. So instead of "0 photos" and a blank page, it could say "Get started by [uploading some photos]".

This is great UX advice! Turn an otherwise empty view into an invitation.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#30

Post by atoav »

calewis wrote: post #22

If you need to create on-boarding your product is to complicated. Add features over time, measure there impact and remove them if they don’t work.

I disagree. there are products that are complicated, because the underlying problem your product helps to solve is complicated. And if there are existing solutions that tackle this problems differently to you, you might have to give users a pointer.

If you e.g. design a software for electronic circuit design, good user on-boarding will allow you to highlight specifically why your product shines in comparison to other products.

Another objection: some “products” are specifically meant to work for power users and a increased software complexity can increase the working speed and power you give to the user at the cost of making it harder for new users (e.g. vim for text editing).

Of course if your product is the equivalent of a egg timer, it should be 100% self explainatory. And even if you do a electronic circuit design software it is always good to keep things self explainatory where you can.

But sometimes you have to explain things in order to equip your users with a new, innovative and powerful concept they might never heard about before. Removing that concept to avoid complexity could them be akin to changing your target group. You can fl this, but it needs to fit the concept.

Oh and sometimes you can just do both. Give your app an expert mode.

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