Or will you end up in the long list of apps I tried and never used again. Some best practices for onboarding a user.
An average app loses 77% of installed users within the first 3 days of install.
So how does one ensure the user is ‘hooked’ within the first 3–7 days?
A couple of points based on my own experience building consumer apps.
Before we dive-into the best practices for onboarding and creating the perfect first user experience, let’s understand the attributes & expectations of a person who installs your app.
Users are impatient
Right after we install an app, we’re impatient to see what’s inside. The whole installation process has made us wait anywhere between 10 s-2 min and we want to dive into the new piece of software. Just like passengers are impatient to get out as soon as the flight lands.(Especially in India!)
Users are vain
Scott Belsky explain this in his blog post. We’re looking for immediate gratification. We’re looking for an ego boost. A like to make us feel better. Facebook, Instagram and other products have made added to our vanity. Success states are a response to our vanity(explained in detail in Nick’s post).
Users are busy & mobile
In the age of smartphones, we’re always busy. A new whatsapp message, a fb ping, an Instagram comment, calling the cab — we’re always doing N things at a time and a lot of the times we’re doing it on the move.
Considering the above traits, let’s figure out how we can build an optimal user experience.
Experience Don’t Tell
We’re impatient. So that beautiful tutorial explaining all the different features you have is unlikely to get much attention. Don’t give me the intro, I want the real deal.
A good novel conveys how much the characters love each other by their actions and not empty words (Hemingway’s ‘Farewell to Arms’ I’m looking at you — don’t read it!)
Similarly, good onboarding focuses on the product experience. It builds an expectation, ‘incepts’ an idea of what to do & expect from the product(More explained in let the user do work). It’s important to figure out the ‘what’s the most meaningful action’ in your app and optimize for that conversion — that conversion acts as a hook to bring back the user to the app.
Examples:
New app say Times of India — just reading a story isn’t enough, you have to push the user to save it.
In a couple of cases the problem is especially hard — example a chat app like Allo or Hike. Unless your friends are on it, it’s not that useful. A work around to this problem is to use a sample data like ‘Trello’(see Nick Babich’s post).
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A lot of apps overuse tool tips. It leads to something like this!
TELL A STORY
In a lot of apps, the flow goes something like this Do A -> Do B -> Do C. Why do i have to do all these things?(My earlier point where users are short-sighted and looking for value vs time spent). A better way to convince the user is to tell a story. Explain how all the things tie up together. But if you don’t absolutely need a data point — ask it later.
LET THE USER DO USEFUL WORK
When you put in some work — you feel a bit of ownership towards it. But at the same time, we’re always trying to figure out what does this give me? How am I rewarded due to it?
I’ve seen a lot of PMs being shy of personalizing the experience because it ‘adds steps’ and hence increases the drop-off. But if the reward is evident to the user it isn’t a step.
The Duolingo ‘Take a test’ — is an example of useful work.
BRING HIM/HER BACK
Users are busy. Despite all your hard work, in a lot of cases the user is going to get interrupted. And then he’s going to forgot about your app. You are adding a new phone to your shopping cart when a whatsapp msg pulls you away. All these users still want to use your product. Use contextual notifications to bring them back.
A better messaging would be ‘Still looking for Beds?’ since it reminds the user about his original need.
The Ultimate retention tool — SUNK COST
Our decisions are tainted by the investments we accumulate, and the more we invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it. It’s the same for apps. And not just the social ones.
If you have a lot of playlists on Gaana, you’re less likely to uninstall it. But creating a playlist is harder. To get around this, you need to break it down — ‘Favoriting’ a song is simpler and more intuitive. Then auto-create a list of all your favorite songs.
The key behind better retention is to get the user to commit right from the start.
Go ahead, kick some ass.
Useful links for creating a powerful onboarding experience.
https://medium.com/positiveslope/the-first-15-seconds-9590d7dabc — Scott Belsky on the first 15 secs of a product.
https://uxplanet.org/best-practices-for-onboarding-92f3a9f0b21a — Nick Babich — one of the finest minds on UX design explains the important aspects of onboarding a user.
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