A CRITIQUE OF PINTEREST’S ONBOARDING

The initial homepage is well designed and elegant looking. Centrally located is the sign up section. There is a selection to the right says, “how it works”. It seems to be an afterthought and not included in the on boarding.

Though the section is tittles “how it works”, it does not actually tell you how to use the interface itself. This explains what the concept behind using Pinterest is, gathering inspiration. I think will be helpful to explain the concept behind the name “Pinterest”. To concept it is about “pinning” Items of interest to a virtual board. This would assist users and understanding the concept overall when actually getting to the homepage.

The user is given have 3 different options signing up. One way is through their existing email. The others are through their existing Facebook account or Gmail account.

After the user signs up using your email you are asked a series of questions; What language do you speak what country are you from with your age and gender. When you sign up using Gmail account there is a redundancy in the questions. The user is asked what country and language they speak through Google but then again via Pinterest. The assumption is that when the user Is utilizing an already created (Gmail or Facebook) account than experience should be quicker but in fact it is not.

After the user is asked the series of questions, they are taken to the application interface. The interface itself is well designed and intuitive. However there is no explanation to the user on how to use the interface. No matter how intuitive and interface it is helpful to give some guidance to the user in their initial use. Users who are not accustomed to these types of interfaces should be (at the very least) given the option of being trained to do so.

In summary if Pinterest resolved the redundancy in the sign up process and lack of training for users it would be a much better onboarding experience for users.