Improving User Onboarding: Designing The Perfect First Date With New Users

This adventure started by defining first order conversion as one of our major objectives to improve by design. Although our conversion rate was higher than e-commerce averages, we still believed that it was possible to achieve much better.

One of the key areas to get people to a first order is the onboarding phase; that moment between registration and actual first-time usage. You could compare it with an actual first date in real life. Similarly, this is a moment at which an app has the chance to make an unforgettable first impression.

The harsh reality of our status quo

When we started out with our product — a personal supermarket in your pocket — it was new for the majority of our wide-ranging target group to do groceries online, let alone in an app.

To persuade people to start using our app, we thought it was important to explain the ease of finding groceries and choosing their moment for delivery. We did exactly that with a jolly video which explained the basic workings of our product.

However, when we decided to do an A/B test to see if this video made any difference, we found that it barely had an impact whatsoever.

People with or without the video were converting at the same rate. Shock!

Lessons learned

What went wrong here? Well, we believe that that are two main reasons to question the effectiveness of our previous video:

1. The movie was explaining the app before people even saw it. While it’s not really in our human nature to sit and learn attentively just before trying this exciting new technology.
2. The movie went along by its fixed tempo. It was communicating too much in a very short time-span. People might miss the good stuff, since they can’t control the consumption rate of the information presented.

You could say that our onboarding video was like that ultra-eager person on your first date. Talking about kids, marriage, and the serious stuff way too soon. Rattling on, without any consideration for whether his/her conversational partner is still following their story or even still interested.

A new approach

After a vivid idea generation phase and a wide-ranging “best in class” analysis, we came to the conclusion that in order to get new users excited we should improve the onboarding flow with the following in mind:

1. Focus on the value proposition of our product, and not the workings of it. Reminding people about the reasons for downloading the app and going through the hassle of registering. We want to remind users why they are here in the first place!
2. Make use of a card carousel enabling users to go trough it on their own tempo, so they can consume the information step by step. This includes the possibility to skip it altogether, for those users that refuse to wait any longer.
3. Use subtle animation to create a sense of liveliness in our story and capture our users’ attention in a playful way.

Based on these requirements, the following slideshow was designed:

The results

The new design explains what our product could mean for users in four simple slides. Aiming to convince new users gradually and to remove any objections that a person could have against doing online grocery shopping.

We ran an A/B test with this design, against the old onboarding video. It proved to be significantly more effective in getting users on board, placing an actual first order. With the new onboarding slides, our first order conversion rate rose by 8%. A pretty sweet improvement, as I’m sure you’ll agree!

We like to believe that our new onboarding slides create a more engaging first date for new users. Like a vivid and bright counterpart with funny anecdotes. It avoids bragging and only continues to talk when there is proof that the other person is actually listening and interested.

Victory! And now…

The new onboarding slides proved significantly more effective in driving first order conversion, so we decided to remove the video from the app completely.

Now, all first-time users get to enjoy the new onboarding ride. However, we already have concrete plans to optimise our first user experience even more.

These further steps include:

• To continuously improve the message and animation in the slides. We will test to discover what works best.
• To research and implement dynamic coach marks to teach people about the app whilst they use it. This encourages learning by doing, only at moments which are relevant to the specific user.
• To research the possibilities of creating a more personalised registration flow, such as asking for preferences, allergies, etc.