{"id":7722,"date":"2019-01-10T17:33:35","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T17:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/?p=7722"},"modified":"2020-03-02T16:08:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T16:08:04","slug":"user-onboarding-best-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/user-onboarding-best-practices","title":{"rendered":"9 best practices for better user onboarding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When people think about growth, they often immediately jump to focusing on acquiring more users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you\u2019re building any kind of software product, the likelihood is your funnel is leaky as soon as users hit the \u201csign up\u201d button.
\nIf you\u2019re still in the process of building your product, or if you\u2019ve found you have a retention problem, the chances are it\u2019s time to start getting serious about your user onboarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this guide, our goal is to help you determine what user onboarding means for your product and look at a selection of best practices to help improve your user onboarding and get activation and retention moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
  1. What is user onboarding?<\/li>\n\n
  2. Designing empty states<\/li>\n\n
  3. Designing an onboarding flow<\/li>\n\n
  4. Reducing the number of steps in your onboarding<\/li>\n\n
  5. Set sensible defaults<\/li>\n\n
  6. Gamify your user onboarding<\/li>\n\n
  7. Email sequences in user onboarding<\/li>\n\n
  8. The mobile vs desktop experience<\/li>\n\n
  9. Testing your own user onboarding<\/li>\n\n
  10. Measuring the effectiveness of your user onboarding<\/li>\n\n
  11. Helpful resources to improve your user onboarding<\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    What is user onboarding?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    User onboarding is a broad topic and encompasses many fields and people. To kick-off, let\u2019s see what the dictionary has to say about user onboarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cThe management of the early stages of a relationship between a business and a customer.\u201d \u2013 Collins English Dictionary<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    While we don\u2019t wish to take anything away from the Collins English Dictionary \u2013 it certainly serves its purpose \u2013 we feel this is a rather dry summary of user onboarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In reality, from our experience both as makers of software, and as users, user onboarding often feels more like something from the game show Takeshi\u2019s castle\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    Takeshi\u2019s Castle certainly gives a realistic summary of how most users onboard into our products. But for the most practical definition of user onboarding, and one that we think outlines the reason for working on the topic is outlined by the team at KISSmetrics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cActivation is the first point where users achieve the value you promised.\u201d \u2013 KISSmetrics<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This definition neatly ties your marketing messaging into your product \u2013 and makes it clear that user onboarding is about getting users to the point where they are \u201cactivated\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What are the best practices to improve your user onboarding?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Improving user onboarding can be a daunting task \u2013 there\u2019s always a thousand things you want to improve, but here we\u2019ll discuss the basics you may want to take a look at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Design the empty states of your product<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Most designers enjoy designing a product in the mindset that a user has fully onboarded themselves \u2013 the \u201cideal\u201d state that most users eventually get to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But most users never reach the ideal state \u2013 they get past your join form and leave. Gone. Never to be seen again.<\/p>\n\n\n

    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n Master Marketing<\/a> <\/div>\n

    \n \n What Is Data-Driven Marketing? (+ 10 Amazing Examples!) <\/a>\n <\/h2>\n
    \n Read More<\/use><\/svg><\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/article>\n\n\n \n
    \n
    \n
    \n Master Marketing<\/a> <\/div>\n

    \n \n 17,000 subscribers. 450 hours. 150 issues of GoSquared Weekly. <\/a>\n <\/h2>\n
    \n Read More<\/use><\/svg><\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/article>\n\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n

    This problem is exacerbated when you\u2019re building a SaaS product that you use yourself \u2013 you\u2019ll have \u201conboarded yourself\u201d many moons ago, and find yourself an expert in using your own product, with close 100% usage of your feature set.

    We can\u2019t stress this enough \u2013 if you\u2019re building a product you use yourself, you have to step back and look at your user onboarding from the perspective of a new user frequently. As we\u2019ll get onto later, there are a few practical ways to do this, but to start with, focus your design attention on the empty states of your product as well as the ideal state.

    For example, if you\u2019re designing an analytics dashboard, your natural tendency is to design a screen with lovely graphs and charts with conveniently complete data in all areas. This is critical, of course, because you need to know what that state of the product will ultimately look like. But make sure you also spend some time thinking about the \u201czero data\u201d state \u2013 what does that dashboard look like with nothing in it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Things to think about when designing your empty states<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    When designing the empty states of your product, think about answering the following questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n