The problem with onboarding screens is that they make the grievous error of thinking that people give a shit about your product.
Nobody cares about your product.
When I have to glaze past six slides of welcome slides, or a constellation of annoying little popups showing me how to get started, it becomes clear that you care more about your product than what I’m here to do.
At this point, your product is the only thing in the way of me ‘getting started’. I just want to do the thing I came to do. Please, no more onboarding screens with silly pictures. No more blocks of text we both know no one’s going to read.
Forget about your product for a second. Let’s talk about what I’m here to do. Do we need to talk about it? Let me do it. Let’s have that chat when I’m done, if we still need to.
If I get stuck then I’d appreciate some assistance. If I want help for any other reason, I’ll come to you.
Your product is the negative space between me and the thing I came here to do. Nothing more.
Other useful stuff about onboarding screens…
- Elements of user onboarding If you want to improve how you think about your onboarding experience, look no further.
- Better Onboarding Krystal Higgins’ new book on onboarding just came out, and I’m enjoying it muchly.
- Do you know where the single biggest drop-off is in your current onboarding experience?
- Full credit to Nathan Thomassin for the featured image 🙏 I’d like to clarify that his modal image was designed to celebrate an upgrade. Nathan shares my distaste for onboarding carousels.
- Comments, questions and feedback are welcome 💬