Best practices for onboarding new users

8 min readJun 1, 2024

Article 18/34 about #productmanagement with a focus on Hard skills.

Introduction

Onboarding, or the introduction process, is a strategy to improve a user’s first interaction with a product. It involves a series of steps designed to familiarise new users with the main features and functions of a product. Onboarding should be intuitive, informative and engaging to maximise attention retention and interest of new users.

The key elements of onboarding are:

1. Simplicity and transparency
Your onboarding should be simple and easy to understand, even for beginners. Provide clear instructions to the user on what to do next and what steps they need to take to start using the product.

Example: Google Docs offers a simple and straightforward process for registering and creating a new document, making it accessible to all categories of users.

2. Personalisation and customisation
Take into account the needs and interests of each user by offering personalised approaches to onboarding. Analyse user behaviour data and use it to create individual ways to interact with the product.

Example: Netflix uses recommendation algorithms to offer personalised content to each user based on their preferences and views.

3. Interactivity and training
Use interactive elements and tutorials to help users learn the product and its functionality. This can be in-built training, videos, tutorials or game elements.

Example: Duolingo offers a game-based approach to language learning with cards, quizzes and rewards to make learning fun and engaging.

4. Moment of Success
Create a moment of success for users by showing them the first achievements and results from using the product. This will help build motivation and get users interested in using the product in the future.

Example: LinkedIn congratulates the user on completing a profile and offers the opportunity to connect with professional contacts, which helps create a moment of success and motivates to continue using the platform.

5. Feedback and support
Provide users with the opportunity to give feedback on their onboarding experience and the product in general. Provide 24/7 support and assistance to quickly respond to user questions and concerns.

Example: Airbnb offers chat support and online assistants ready to help users with booking accommodation and other issues.

What is the goal in onboarding the user?

Product familiarisation (onboarding) is the first and most important part of the customer journey, as it is what introduces them to the features and functions. For most software products, it can take some time before users realise the full potential of the product and get real value from it. But by following product adoption best practices, development teams can quickly bring new users up to speed, allowing them to capitalise on their new investment.

This moment when the user finds the benefits of the app is called the ‘aha moment’, and a world-class onboarding experience helps reduce the time it takes to reach this moment. This moment is called (time-to-value) product value creation time (TTV), and a low TTV means a high adoption rate.

Onboarding new users should perform the following tasks:

Introduce and familiarise new users with the interface of your app with a product tour
Show the main benefits of your product with in-app messaging
Teach new users how to use your app
Complete account setup and registration for new users

What great thing does onboarding do for the customer?

Each product approaches the user onboarding process differently. What works in one product won’t necessarily work in another because the offerings and audiences are different. However, there are basic principles that are common to all products.

The overall goal of every product in the introduction process is to briefly, simply, and effectively tell new users about the product. This gives users a basic understanding of how to use the product and enables them to realise the true potential of the application in a shorter period of time.

New user introduction checklists should be user-centric and use user testing data to determine what works best in your product and continually improve it.

An effective new user introduction experience is:

User-centricity
Role/outcome orientated
Built with the user’s actions in mind
Informative
Broken down into modal parts
Supported by research and user testing
Simplicity

Examples of onboarding of large products

Canva

Canva is a free and easy-to-use design platform that can be used for any design projects. During the registration process, users are asked how they plan to use the platform. Users are then guided through a tutorial according to their choice.

During the introduction process, Canva customises the platform according to the user’s preferences, providing a personalised experience for different categories of users such as teachers, students, SMEs, enterprises or non-profit organisations.

Each tutorial contains a short interactive video that shows users how to create their first design.

Duolingo

Duolingo is a fun and engaging way to learn a new language, why not make the registration process the same?

While most apps start with a registration form, Duolingo starts with interesting questions to personalise the user experience. A variety of characters and a reassuring tone make the registration process simple and enjoyable. Duolingo also offers a free version of its software, which lowers the barrier for indecisive users.

Upon launching Duolingo, you’ll notice its cute, encouraging mascot and teacher — a green owl with glasses. Adding a character makes learning fun and less intimidating. They then ask what language they want to learn, why they want to learn that language, and their time commitment to tailor the app to each user.

You’ll also notice a progress bar at the top of the page — it sets user expectations and reduces the dropout rate for new users. Duolingo also personalises a user’s lessons based on their current level of proficiency in the language they are learning, giving new users a more effective lesson plan and strategy.

Airtable

Airtable is a low-code project management and app creation app for teams to automate task management processes. Due to its customisation, it has many use cases for different types of departments, roles and industries.

This creates a challenge for Airtable’s user interface as it needs to provide contextual and relevant information for different user groups. Airtable solves this problem by asking the question ‘What team are you on?’ at the very beginning of the user registration process.

From here, Airtable offers new users two paths: Use a template application created by Airtable, or create one from scratch.

Airtable further contextualises the new user introduction process by offering tasks and project types based on popular Airtable use cases for the team selected in the first step of this flow. For example, I clicked on the Marketing team flow and was presented with Airtable use cases for blog post calendars, illustration requests, newsletters, etc.

Airtable’s new user registration flow is a great example as it provides contextual information about role-based registration. This allows you to provide relevant information to different user groups, which helps to quickly demonstrate the benefits and value of the product.

PlayStation 5

Sony’s PS5 came out with a brand new user interface (UI). Combined with a diverse user base, this created a lot of problems when introducing new gamers to the system.

First and foremost, Sony introduces new users to the technical aspects of the customisation process as soon as the system is switched on. This includes customising the system settings to match the user’s home setup, assisting with transferring data into the system, downloading new applications, family restrictions and more.

Once the user has completed the technical preparation and system setup, the PS5 UX flow moves on to the next stage: familiarising users with the new control panel and user interface. Sony uses interactive tutorials in the form of interactive instructions and tooltips for users, helping to provide the information they need right in the system’s UI.

Vimeo

The Vimeo app has to do with creating and editing video content, and during the onboarding, they detail the beauty and functionality of their platform.

Revolut

Revolut is a great app, it’s a payment system that allows for various financial transactions. Using simple text and images for onboarding they tell users about the features available.

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Conclusion

Effective onboarding of new users is a key element of a successful product strategy. By adopting best practices and providing a convenient and engaging user experience, you can significantly increase customer satisfaction and long-term engagement with your product.