What does this man have to do with your app?
At betaworks one of the things we like to obsess over is on-boarding. That first touch, the initial spark — the first experience or reaction people have to products we build or the companies we invest in. Whether its signing up for Poncho, or the first experience of the Dots mechanic or signing up for a Giphy account, or the simplicity of the Everlane experience — or the way Dots changes its app icon to correspond to new worlds in the game — its all about making the experience simple, fun and increasingly its about telling a story inside and around your app.
Software is changing — software experiences that used to be designed as functional tools are becoming blurred with media. And what started with guide copy is becoming narrative and media. Its a bit like taking down the fourth wall in theatre — app’s are starting to converse with end-users and make the experience of using them a conversational media experience.
Last week we launched Glitter — a simple app to trade contact information — contact information plus a bit of sparkle and a bit of gif. In the post below Maya lays out the design of the on-boarding process and the key completion metrics the app hit. At a high level formulae is: define the itch the product seeks to scratch. Create a narrative. Minimize any overload associated with on boarding. Delight users and make the action and the basic workflow of the app as simple as possible. Design and use tools to measure everything — in particular we focus on completion and engagement. Rinse repeat.
The Glitter app is a v1. Before introducing sharing and other functionality the team wanted to create a narrative and hit a completion rate hurdle— they did that, big time. Over to Maya and she will explain their approach to on-boarding and what that Jason King (that man) had to do with it.
