This document discusses Valve's approach to onboarding users in the game Portal, which avoided three common pitfalls: the paradox of the active user, dual-task interference, and front-loading. The paradox of the active user refers to users wanting to dive in and do something meaningful rather than read manuals, so Valve embedded guidance within gameplay. Dual-task interference means users ignore messages while focused on a task, so Valve placed educational messages after task completion. Front-loading means providing all instructions upfront; Valve broke critical activities into parts and introduced new features gradually over time.

1. Game onboarding
Example: Valve “Portal”

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Who am I?
• Christoph Müller
• Product Manager within
Gravity Global AG
• Digital Learning Expert
• Avid Gamer

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[Source: Blizzard /Imgur ]

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Every Game Designer’s Problem
• Core Engagement
How do I attach the user to the game?
• Core Mechanics
How do I educate the user to the game’s mechanic?
• Looks like a familiar problem to you?

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3 pitfalls Valve avoided
• The paradox of the active user
• Dual-task interference
• Front-loading

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The paradox of the active user
• First introduced in a study by Mary Beth Rosson and John Carroll,
researchers at IBM, in the 1980s.
• While observing new users of desktop publishing software, an
unexpected behavior emerged: these users were rarely reading the
user guides for it. Instead, these “active users” would dive right into
using the software to try it out—even if that meant running into
avoidable errors and getting stuck at dead-ends.
• New users wanted to get started and do something meaningful, not
waste time reading a manual.

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The paradox of the active user
• We can’t rely on passive content like introductory slides or tutorial
videos. Instead, we need to embrace guiding users as they interact
with our products, giving them what they need through practice.
[Screenshot: 2019 Microsoft Office 365]

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Leverage your defaults
Avoid: the paradox of the active user

9. gravity.global [Screenshot: 2019 Microsoft Office 365]

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Put education in the context
of use
Avoid: the paradox of the active user

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[Screenshot: 2019 IFTTT. All rights reserved]

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Dual-task interference
• Dual-task interference is a phenomenon in which people ignore alerts,
announcements, and other messaging that pop up or get in the way of a
person’s current task. The “dual” part of dual-task interference speaks to the
idea of someone needing to deal with two things at once.
• A study found that 74% of people ignored security messages that popped
up while they were on the way to close a web page window.
• These researchers found that displaying security messages during natural
pauses, such as while the user was waiting for a video to process, reduced
how many participants disregarded the messages by as much as 50%.
• Our instinct is to make introductory information as visible as possible.

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Put educational messages after
the user completes an action
Avoid: Dual-task interference

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[Screenshot: 2019 Commonwealth Bank of Australia] [Screenshot: 2019 Microsoft Office 365]

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Front-loading
• Front-loading is when all of the instructions and steps for learning a
new concept are presented at the start of a learning experience. Front-
loading occurs in many industries: in business, a company might front-
load all possible agreement terms into a contract to avoid disputes
down the road.
• Front-loading can be beneficial in business but it doesn’t help people
learn new things, like products.

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Break critical setup activities
into 3 parts
Avoid: Front-loading

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Trigger Activity Follow-up
[Screenshot: Slack, Inc.]

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Introduce new features by
breaking them down
Avoid: Front-loading

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[Screenshot: Twitter, Inc.]

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Take away
• Highlight „the defaults“ for the 90% of the daily use
• Put education in the context of use
• Introduce new features by breaking them down

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