1. On Onboarding
Josh Elman
@joshelman

2. Products I’ve worked on
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3. O N B O A R D I N G
When you know the experience is great,
If only you can find your way there Photo by Patrick Hodskins on Unsplash

4. It all starts at Inception
Photo by George Vasiliadis on Medium

5. Then someone Shows Up to your front door
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

6. Their Motivation Matters
How motivated are you to use this product?
Fly-Bys
They just
aren’t that
into you
Eagers
They just
want in so
bad.
The Fuzzy Middle
They are curious.
They want to learn more.
This is who you can convert.

7. THIS IS YOUR MOMENT
YOU WILL NEVER GET THIS MUCH ATTENTION AGAIN.

8. My Onboarding Philosophy
1) Your users are motivated and curious
2) You have their attention for several minutes.
3) Take the time to introduce the product
4) More simple steps are better than fewer complex ones.
5) No one wants a lecture. Nor a mystery.

9. What great
onboarding
feels like

10. How do you replicate that?
1) Start by repeating the core message and setting context
2) It’s ok to ask for the basics (email, password, etc).
But for anything else, explain why you are asking
3) Break your product down into key concepts
4) Each step should represent one concept with a clear
action for the user to take.
More steps are better than fewer steps.
Yes, I know that sounds backwards.

11. EXERCISE
Find someone new to onboard to your product.
One person is the coach. One person takes notes.
Record every single thing the new user asks about, is
confused about, is nervous about.
Record every single thing the coach says to smooth it over.
Then… Take everything the coach says, and figure out how
to embed it into your product.

12. How do you know if it works?
Customer Research:
After someone onboards, ask them
“What do you think the product does?”
If their answer matches what the product does, you’re good
Metrics:
Measure usage after 1 week and 1 month.
Do not measure completion rates of your onboarding flow

13. Example 1: Life360
(you’ll see me thinking out loud)

14. Front Door
Ok - so Life360 helps
me share my location
with family and drive
more safely.
Why are we in the
mountains?

15. The basics
At this point, I’m
motivated enough, I’ll
just blitz through this

16. Hey that’s personal!
When you start asking
for more personal
information, it’s always
good to explain why.
This applies to birthday,
address, Social Security
number, etc.

17. Setting Context
A circle is a key concept
for Life360. They take a
moment to describe it.
Also - you might have
been invited. Make sure
you catch this. Getting
context someone comes
with is very valuable.

18. Concept by Concept
They get you to simply
name your circle. And
they plant the seed for
creating more.
Also - they make sharing
a natural step. Sharing in
invite flows are great.

19. Concept by Concept
Describing role - look at
all the other people you
should invite! Power of
suggestion.
And photos - they show
how it gets used and
how to shape it.

20. Notifications
Explain why. Ask one by
one. Don’t just pop the
OS windows without
preparing the user first.

21. Concept by Concept
Places -- they introduce
them and let you set
your first ones.
Driver Protect - they
introduce premium
features. “Maybe Later”
is easy to dismiss. But
now you know it’s there!

22. NOW I’M IN
That was a lot of steps
and prep, and finally I’m
in the product.
And it’s still reminding
me I’m not really set up
until I have more people.
Tips at the top.

23. Second Launch
When I come back to
the product they are still
reminding me of
features. I’m new, so this
is ok. Over time it might
get annoying.

24. Example 2: Facetune
(you’ll see me thinking out loud)

25. Introducing Context
It’s all about faces. And it
gets me excited for how
good looking I could
make my selfie. Or… are
these just good looking
people?

26. Aggressive Upsell?
Whoa, I was just getting
going on the product.
This is quite an
aggressive special offer.
I’m not sure I’m ready
yet. I didn’t expect that.

27. Aggressive Notifs?
Whoa, I just skipped
your upsell. Now you are
foisting Apple on me to
ask if I want
notifications? I haven’t
even seen what you are
about yet.

28. Learn by doing?
I started playing with this
example image. I
couldn’t figure out what
was going on or how
these worked. Giving me
the app is pretty
overwhelming. Could
use better onboarding!

29. My Onboarding Philosophy
1) Your users are motivated and curious
2) You have their attention for several minutes.
3) Take the time to introduce the product
4) More simple steps are better than fewer complex ones.
5) No one wants a lecture. Nor a mystery.

30. On Onboarding
Josh Elman
@joshelman