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Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

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Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#111

Post by RobertKerans »

arkitaip wrote: post #81
dhimes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine Twitter being good at reaching a market unless you've gone viral. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like it's like pouring a taste of wine into a fire hose. I don't think I've ever learned about a product on Twitter (but I block ads and don't do much on there). I hear about news and stuff from Twitter.

You have to have a following and be careful with how your market your stuff but yes, I've discovered many products via Twitter BUT they are almost always aligned with my interests and hobbies. Those that aren't, typically promoted tweet, get blocked.

Yep, same. And it's word of mouth from people/entities I trust. And that trust has been built up over time. I have zero attachment to Acmecorp or Joe Random, and generally zero trust in them.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#112

Post by ben509 »

atoav wrote: post #102
overcast wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly believe you can onboard someone to electronic circuit design software, by having a bunch of annoying modal boxes popping up showing you where some key features are? I agree there is complicated software, but that isn't made less complicated by silly onboarding. And if your software is not complicated, you're just pissing people off having to click away from all that junk. If it's not complicated, but…

So you take the idea of on-boarding in it’s most horrible manifestation and use it as a argument against the fundamental idea of introducing users to new concepts within the software they are using?

Is that really the most horrible manifestation or a typical onboarding experience in practice?

Most of the onboarding I've seen clearly has some real thought put into it, but it still feels modal.

They usually involve widgets that pop up and must be dismissed. Often they pretend to not be modal by not covering the screen, but I assume I have to chase them down and make them go away.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#113

Post by elliotec »

burtonator wrote: post #48
waylandsmithers wrote: post #28

I get that there are probably established best practices that people follow for designing onboarding but I've never experienced one as a user that I didn't want to immediately dismiss or skip through.

Here are our stats for Polar.... Before onboarding our cohort retention was 2%...after 1 week. This means that after a week only 2% of our users came back to use the app. After a basic onboarding we jumped to 10%. We're now at about 14-15% (just via improving the app). About 50% of our users completely skip the onboarding altogether. I think I'm going to experiment with a video instead of a tour to see the difference…

This is really interesting, because Polar is the first onboarding experience I've had in a really long time that made sense and wasn't extremely annoying.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#114

Post by Bedon292 »

burtonator wrote: post #48
waylandsmithers wrote: post #28

I get that there are probably established best practices that people follow for designing onboarding but I've never experienced one as a user that I didn't want to immediately dismiss or skip through.

Here are our stats for Polar.... Before onboarding our cohort retention was 2%...after 1 week. This means that after a week only 2% of our users came back to use the app. After a basic onboarding we jumped to 10%. We're now at about 14-15% (just via improving the app). About 50% of our users completely skip the onboarding altogether. I think I'm going to experiment with a video instead of a tour to see the difference…

What is the retention of people who do vs don't skip the onboarding? Is it a wide disparity?

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#115

Post by tomc1985 »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #107
tomc1985 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God I hate user onboarding... seeing stats like that make me so sad, and feel ever further away from the current internet zeitgeist.

Half of their users skip the on-boarding. Why would that make you feel far away from the current internet zeitgeist? Presumably the user group you've self selected into also has a retention rate that is 20x lower than those that don't skip the on-boarding.

Because everything has onboarding now. Sometimes it's unskippable (think mobile games). It's always annoying, very frequently patronizing, and, frankly most people's app/site designs aren't that special because modern UX seems to have no more than a handful of designs for how tech is to be spoonfed to the masses.

Of course none of that matters because it makes another tiny, self-selected group considerably more money.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#116

Post by ivanhoe »

dlanouette wrote: post #71
burtonator wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are our stats for Polar.... Before onboarding our cohort retention was 2%...after 1 week. This means that after a week only 2% of our users came back to use the app. After a basic onboarding we jumped to 10%. We're now at about 14-15% (just via improving the app). About 50% of our users completely skip the onboarding altogether. I think I'm going to experiment with a video instead of a tour to see the difference…

> About 50% of our users completely skip the onboarding altogether. How is this different than when you had no onboarding? (serious question) Did you make other changes that made the onboarding process less important to end users?

You separate people in those willing to explore and figure it out on their own, and those who'd otherwise probably never check further than the home page on their own. In my experience the biggest gain from intros is that when you get people into entering some basic data - creating an example project or something - they feel like they've already invested some time and are much more willing to explore the features further and enter more data and eventually really start using the app.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#118

Post by artur_makly »

burtonator wrote: post #48
waylandsmithers wrote: post #28

I get that there are probably established best practices that people follow for designing onboarding but I've never experienced one as a user that I didn't want to immediately dismiss or skip through.

Here are our stats for Polar.... Before onboarding our cohort retention was 2%...after 1 week. This means that after a week only 2% of our users came back to use the app. After a basic onboarding we jumped to 10%. We're now at about 14-15% (just via improving the app). About 50% of our users completely skip the onboarding altogether. I think I'm going to experiment with a video instead of a tour to see the difference…

can anyone else share some A/B stats?

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#119

Post by shakna »

stronglikedan wrote: post #45
jordanpg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you saying you want something for nothing? If not nothing, what? Ads aren't just the business model of the internet. They've been subsidizing human interaction since ancient times.

However, they weren't always backed by vast networks designed to stalk, and manipulate you, with access to more data than most ruling governments have.

Re: Don't Waste Time on User Onboarding

#120

Post by RobertKerans »

jimmaswell wrote: post #42
enlyth wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. I don't care if your ad is clever, relevant, organically sourced, environmentally friendly, necessary for financing your product, something I actually want, need, or didn't know I wanted yet. The internet is plagued with this cancer everywhere you go, no matter what you do. Somehow it's become acceptable that every second of our attention and time is competed for by corporations trying to sell us…

I don't understand this overreaction. Ads are there, so what, they don't even make noise or tend to cover parts of the screen like they used to.

The ones under discussion are the digital equivalent of junk mail
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