An app that understands the user and adapts accordingly creates a happier experience. At Anghami, the leading app for streaming music in the Middle East, we observe the music a user listens to and personalize the homepage accordingly. This is great for users who listened to a hundred songs since Anghami has enough information to make recommendations they will love. But what about a user who just signed up?
The golden first experience will be subpar, and initial recommendations will be solely based on trending commercial songs. That’s why Anghami now asks new users the kind of music they like. User onboarding is the process of asking preliminary information so that the user finds the app useful. In the case of Anghami, users’ answers are used to introduce music they will likely enjoy. Instead of blindly displaying music that we think is great, onboarding makes it possible to introduce tailored music from the very first moment.
Anghami’s first onboarding iteration
In Anghami’s first iteration, onboarding starts by inviting the user to personalize Anghami. The purpose here is setting the right context and focusing on personalization. In the second screen, a list of popular genres is displayed, and the user chooses their favorite genres. The third screen shows popular artists from the chosen genres, and the user follows their favorite artists. Notice that the interface refers to genres in a friendly tone: “what kind of music.”
Injecting Analytics
It’s typical to inject analytics into every new feature so we can analyze performance. The analytics services we use at Anghami range from pure server performance to user behavior. Amplitude is the mobile analytics service we use to track user behavior in the app. In the case of onboarding, we added Amplitude events to each step: when a new user signs up, when they choose genres, and when they choose artists. Choosing artists marks the completion of onboarding.
