ESSENTIAL ONBOARDING TACTICS — PART 2: VALUE-ORIENTED ONBOARDING
In our first part segment on user onboarding tactics, we talked about progressive onboarding, its variations, and best practices. In this article, we’re going to take a look at value-oriented onboarding and how to best implement it for your app.
Essentially, value-oriented onboarding aims to clearly and efficiently delineate the core benefits of an app for a user. Value-oriented onboarding is a great way to introduce your app to the user, and it’s a mobile onboarding process best used when the app is not very complex. Of course, benefit-oriented onboarding can also be used to “sell” a complex app in the first few seconds, and then progressive onboarding can take place within the app itself.
How to use Value-Oriented Onboarding
Onboard First, Register Second
You don’t get a second chance at a first impression. Make sure you showcase your app’s benefits before the login or registration screen. This way, you get the chance to impress and connect with your users first, and then step graciously to the side as they start using the app.
Stick to the Key Benefits
When presenting the benefits to the user, don’t go overboard. Identify three or four key benefits that will have the most impact on your target audience and focus on them. Otherwise, you risk boring the user with too much, and sometimes superfluous, information. User research documentation can be used to great effect here. Make sure that the benefits you showcase are clearly targeted to address the problems and needs of your users. Take a look at the messaging app Pip- in 3 sleek, clear slides it breaks down the most important value points for the user.
One Concept per Slide
Use a separate slide for each benefit. This way, you will present focused messages that have the most impact. Clutter and visual noise should be avoided at all costs, especially when striving for this type of onboarding. Take a look at Evernote Food’s crisp slide layout with a core benefit as the title of each slide:
Brevity is the Soul of Wit
Keeping with the theme of focused messages, brief copy is most effective here. A benefit should be clear, well targeted and succinct. This makes the benefit more memorable and impactful. Furthermore, while we’re talking about copy, make sure that you keep the writing style consistent across your slides. If you use mostly verbs in one slide, don’t switch to adjectives in the next. The same goes for visual consistency. Keep the color palette, visual theme, animation and object positioning consistent throughout your slides.
How not to use Value-Oriented Onboarding
Value-oriented onboarding serves as a sort of appetizer for the user. It is designed to make a user understand how an app works for them, and increase his or her desire to use it. This is why it’s best to avoid:
- Making it too long. This is a capital rule. Do not go overboard with the number of slides, otherwise you risk sounding to salesy or boring.
- Writing too much text. Again, this is an appetizer. It’s supposed to be short and sweet, not the main course.
- Adding information that is not of value to the user. Do not use value-oriented onboarding to sell your users on other products. Benefits are not about you, they are about what your product can do for your users.
With a good value-oriented onboarding process you can reel in users that might not realize what your app could do for them at first glance. It’s a great way to create value without taking too much of the user’s time.
Additional Reading: In a Smashing Magazine feature, our VP of Marketing, Alon Even, speaks extensively about fine-tuning your onboarding process through a variety of best practices. If you are looking for an even further in-depth analysis of what works and what doesn’t for the types of onboarding processes, and how to apply UX analytics to perfect your strategies, make sure to check it out.
