Like a first impression, your app's user onboarding experience is the first interaction users have with your product. Getting it right can be the difference between retaining users and losing them forever. The goal of an effective onboarding flow is to empower users to realize your app's value in the shortest amount of time.
What Makes A User Onboarding Experience Great?
Every product approaches user onboarding differently, but there are core fundamentals that all great experiences share. The shared goal is to guide new users through the product in a brief, simple, and effective manner. This allows users to get the basics of how to use your app and empowers them to realize its true potential.
A great user onboarding experience should be:
- User-centric
- Role/outcome-based
- Built with user actions in mind
- Informational
- Broken down into modal pieces
- Backed by user research and testing
- Simple
Best Examples of User Onboarding Experience Flows
Let's examine some of the best user onboarding experiences from 15 real-world apps, websites, and services. We'll break down what makes each guided onboarding tour effective.
Grammarly
Grammarly is a writing assistant tool that scans your writing to help improve its effectiveness. Their onboarding flow starts with a quick product tour, then presents users with a demo document to see how Grammarly edits it. This interactive and visual learning experience lowers the barriers to entry, encouraging users to move forward.
Slack
Slack's clean UX and clever language make the onboarding process seamless and enjoyable for new users. The chatbot walks users through an initial product tour, helping them set up their account and first channel. This contextual onboarding experience helps users learn how to use the product quickly.
Flipboard introduces users to the dynamics of flipping pages from the start of a new user's onboarding experience. Users are asked to select topics they're interested in with a modal window that blocks the rest of the screen. This personalized news feed engages and instantly pulls users in.
By examining these examples, you can identify what makes them effective and replicate those best practices for your own app. Remember, the goal is to empower users to realize your app's value quickly and seamlessly. With a great user onboarding experience, you'll be well on your way to retaining users and driving long-term success.