First experience: How one good tutorial can significantly improve the metrics

Flo experiments a lot in search of new approaches. Some of our hypotheses bring us new experiences that we need to develop further. Others improve the metrics remarkably on the first try.

In this article, we’ll talk about how an experiment to improve the first user experience helped us improve retention and increased the average number of days spent in the app.

The magic of the first experience

Every segment or market is represented by a large number of apps. In the very first minutes with the product, the user asks themselves a few questions that help them decide if they need the technology or would rather try something else:

• Will the product really be useful to me?
• Does it meet my objectives?
• How clear are the functions to me?

The challenge: Normally, a user doesn’t have the time or desire to ponder over the product’s functions and their value. So the first experience should act as a hook that sparks their interest and motivates them to further explore the features of the apps.

Flo’s solution: We demonstrate the value of our product and its variety of functions through training materials — we talk about the philosophy and mission, and we show how individual features work and how the user can use them to meet their needs. That’s where the Tutorial — a native tutorial on how to use the application — comes into play.

There are two types of Tutorials.

• The onboarding tutorial teaches the user basic functions through a direct demonstration of their effectiveness.
• Re-onboarding tutorials reintroduce the app’s functionality to users for a deeper dive into its features.

Onboarding Flo: From value to feature

Now let’s elaborate on the Onboarding tutorial and break down the structure of it.

The three key areas that help us present Flo’s functions:

1. User need — This is the need that brought the user to the app. It can be identified in two ways: through a qualitative or quantitative study. In the first case, you can run user testing. Let users get familiar with the app, then ask them what features of the app they found interesting and why. This is the preferred method at Flo because it helps us define more specific goals and outline a plan to achieve them.
2. Core functionality — These are the app’s features that make it stand out from other products on the market.
3. Promises — This is the ability to live up to the expectations presented in the Apple Store and Google Play.

Once the inputs for all three areas are formed, they’re put into a table, where we take notes on:

• offered features — based on the core functionality
• promises associated with the features — what the user will get out of using them
• needs of the user — what app functionality within the first experience is the most understandable and useful for them

Tutorial structure: Example

Let’s have a look at how this technique works by using a soccer training app as an example. We put the anticipated features for new players in the first column, and in the second one we matched them with the promises. In the third column, we highlighted the most useful features according to the users.

Based on this table, we can develop a tutorial structure by including the promised features that meet the user’s expectations.

In our example, these features are:

• AR with ball kick simulation
• Community of players

Another important thing to consider in onboarding is the user’s feelings. When they’re learning how to use the app, they want support from the app and assurance that they’ve done everything right. Proper feedback and encouragement will create the necessary emotional background to motivate them to continue learning about and using the features.

So we added some supportive phrases in our structure between the description of the features — an end-of-onboarding reminder that it takes more than one attempt to achieve a goal and that further training is needed tomorrow, is also part of this communication.

Flo experience: Working on the Tutorial and Tutorial concept

During the development of Flo onboarding, we needed to explain the effectiveness of each feature to the user with a simple, clear example.

We used the hook framework, which allows us to reveal the essence of the functions through the following scheme:

• Trigger — a personal objective that motivates the user to try the function at the level of sensory or rational thought
• Action — user actions in the app necessary to achieve the specified objective
• Reward — rewarding the user by satisfying their need
• Investment — a user action necessary in the app to gain access to advanced functions

The Hook model

As you know, one of the most relevant functions of Flo is the ability to track your condition in different phases of the menstrual cycle. So our Trigger to action was the suggestion to mark a symptom that corresponded to the user’s current phase. In the Action step, we asked the user to note all the symptoms they were currently experiencing. Then their focus was shifted to the Reward — a list of recommendations in Stories format that could help the user reduce the negative impact of symptoms and improve their quality of life.

The results of the experiment

The Onboarding Tutorial was tested in the first session as a way to enhance the funnel and explain the value of the app functions at the start of working with the app. This experiment helped us to increase both retention and the number of active days in the app.