User Onboarding

http://www.useronboard.com/onboarding-teardowns/

by elie_CH • 12 years ago

210 69 12 years ago

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Hi everyone! I just saw a bunch of tweets linking to my site and traced it back here -- I'm the person behind this site and if anyone has any questions, I'd love to answer them here!

niels• 12 years ago

Great overview. Thanks a lot.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

You're very welcome!

highace• 12 years ago

You've clearly put a lot of time into this and I think you've done a great job. I've gathered a whole bunch of new ideas to try with my onboarding in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to figure it out myself.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

I'm really glad to hear that -- it's the whole point! New teardowns come out every week or two, as well.

tuurul• 12 years ago

Excellent website. Learning a lot from it. Thanks.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Really glad to hear it. Thanks for taking the time to let me know!

arethuza• 12 years ago

Are you going to track these things over time? It would be pretty cool to see how things change along with an analysis of why they changed stuff.

NB Really good job - I found this quite fascinating.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Yep, that's a big-time point of interest for me. Keep an eye out for some of that in the future!

Serow2252• 12 years ago

Very nice, great work! Some FYIs: On my iphone Safari browser, I found the next/prev buttons on the viewer to be very small targets. Also, before I noticed them, I tried swiping horizontally on the slide itself, but this triggers some weird zoom behavior. Lastly, it's hard to see the details of the slides when using this device/browser. Again, congrats on creating a great resource!

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Those are good points, for sure. I hadn't considered the swiping part, especially. Mostly the details are stupidly small at mobile size -- as much as I'm a fan of responsive design, this really is more of a "desktop" activity.

alaeri2• 12 years ago

Hey, I love your website. I've been through half of the teardowns. Have you ever thought about doing the same things for mobile apps?

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

I agree I should do more of them, but Pocket (http://www.useronboard.com/how-pocket-onboards-new-users/) and WhatsApp (http://www.useronboard.com/how-whatsapp-onboards-new-users/) were both mobile.

timdorr• 12 years ago

Any chance you could bring down the size of the screenshots you take? Most people don't have huge screens like you do, so I feel like I'm not seeing the typical UX.

For instance, a lot of the buttons on these screens are very extremely pushed to the side when they're in the corners. Look at the Shopify one specifically.

And while yes, some users will have screens that huge and designers will have to deal with that edge case, I feel it's too atypical to use for a typical user's experience.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

I actually just got an email with this question yesterday, as well! Going full-screen gives me extra screen space to tack on the annotations without covering other parts of the interface up, but I agree that sometimes things spill over. I could try letterboxing it and seeing where that leads -- thanks for the feedback. In general, though, I also wish more teams had a simple "max width: 1400px;" declaration!

staffordrj• 12 years ago

What do you think about adding a grade to each experience?

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

It's definitely tempting, but the reviews I provide are really just surface skims -- without knowing the constraints the teams are working with and/or what the conversion rates of the adoption funnel are, I'm really not in a position to dole out grades.

arturszott• 12 years ago

This is awesome!

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Thank you for saying so!

dafnap• 12 years ago

This is great!! Thanks for taking the time to do this. Very helpful to learn from these companies

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Really glad to hear it's helpful -- stay tuned for many more.

andygeers• 12 years ago

If you've not got it already, buy Samuel's e-book - it's ace! https://www.useronboard.com/training/

grosbisou• 12 years ago

Why is it ace? Can you develop a bit and explain why you liked it? Thanks ;)

I mean even if the website is really interesting, the book is $50 minimum.

dfc2• 12 years ago

The breakdown of the OKCupid process has these two comments about illustrations:

  1. Illustration of smiling high confidence person draws you in.
    
  2. The illustration feels a bit flat and 'uncanny-valley-ish.' it leaves an
  impersonal impression, but that might be the intent (i.e. you get the
  personal stuff when you log in)

Would you be surprised to learn that these comments are about the same illustration? I was. I clicked back and forth 4-5 times to make sure I was not missing something. A lot of the comments made it seem like I was listening to Foamy the Squirrel give stream of consciousness impressions as he signed up for online dating.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

I appreciate the critique, but it's not like an object can't have more than one quality. :) In this case, an illustration was both crudely presented while simultaneously being more personable than, say, a block of text. I'm not sure where the "gotcha" here is.

dfc2• 12 years ago

You really think those descriptions are compatible? I don't mean compatible like "sort-a prominent sorta-not position," I am talking about not mutually exclusive. Uncanny valley has never been something that I imagined being drawn to.

netcan2• 12 years ago

Slight tangent:

This is a great example of something most people can do to boost their earning potential, even (especially) as an employee. As an aid to selling ebooks & training, the benefit is obvious (it's on HN). But, something like this would also make sense to anyone working on UX.

It's at least as valuable as an acronym on your CV.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

It really comes down to this, doesn't it? https://twitter.com/patio11/status/421694694696185856 :)

netcan2• 12 years ago

More or less.

Patrick seems to be advocating making your everyday work public, repeatable and enduring. That's ideal. But, for people that are working in a silo or otherwise not going to take that step, this seems like an accessible step.

In fact, a carbon copy of this seems like a good template for a UX person to follow. Pick a topic (not on boarding). Do the research. Make a dozen examples easily digestible for someone who needs to implement the thing you are researching. In-app notifications, advanced settings, in-app tips (Clippy!), profile pages, email drip marketing, commenting systems, badges, profile pages…. Almost any UX topic could use teardowns like this.

jf22• 12 years ago

Got his book free from attending Microconf.

Full of useful tips and tricks. I highly recommend it.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

I'm glad to hear it -- did any parts stand out in particular?

forrecovery123• 12 years ago

Extremely useful resource! Thank you :)

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Thanks for finding it useful!

ghiculescu• 12 years ago

I thought it would be interesting to see how http://www.useronboard.com/ stacks up, based on some of the feedback dished out in those teardowns. Some quick notes, based on http://i.imgur.com/mIwr3TS.png, and assuming that the goal is to sell copies of the book.

- There's no call to action at all

- Assuming someone who lands here would have some idea of what user onboarding is, the page doesn't say specifically how this will help me get better at it. Just gives me a definition which I (probably) already know.

- Mentioning brands I recognise (Spotify, Pocket, Pinterest) is good. Makes me curious to know more. But I'm not sure exactly what a teardown is.

- Ahhh, so there's a book that I'll like if I enjoyed the teardowns. I guess I'll look at a teardown and then maybe I'll look at the book afterwards.

- Once on a teardown page (eg. http://www.useronboard.com/how-shopify-onboards-new-users/) there's nothing mentioning the book at all.

- I am now addicted to teardowns and have forgotten about the book. The Training & Contact links at the top do not get my attention. Which is a shame because I think https://www.useronboard.com/training/ does a pretty good job overall.

- Completely ignored the Latest Posts bit at the bottom of the homepage. Looks very similar to the Less Accounting one (http://www.useronboard.com/how-lessaccounting-onboards-new-u...)

Maybe it's not actually trying to sell very hard the book and I'm over thinking it a bit, but I did find it interesting to try and apply what I'd just learned.

GFischer• 12 years ago

The teardowns are really interesting :) . I agree that they should sell you the book after seeing those ! Or consulting :)

tsieling• 12 years ago

There's no call to action at all

There's a giant blue button that says Check out the Book

jamestanderson• 12 years ago

This is getting really nitpicky, but it's below "the fold." So it might as well not be there for some users.

But getting people to buy the book might not be the primary goal of the website, or the home page. It's probably to show off the reviews and teardowns, which it does a great job of. I think it's perfectly acceptable to have the secondary purpose of the site, buying the book, a bit out of the way.

novaleaf• 12 years ago

it's below the fold. dunno if the parent noticed it or not..

bmelton• 12 years ago

It's been mentioned that it's below the fold, but it's also worth noting that it's not even on the linked page.

The article page linked to from HN is "http://www.useronboard.com/onboarding-teardowns/", which has zero calls to action on it natively. If I go back to home, yes, I see the button, below the fold, presumably it exists on other pages as well, but it is definitely not on the linked page, which had me questioning why I couldn't find it (and spending an inordinately long time looking for it).

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Very nice feedback! I agree there's plenty of room for improvement here -- it started as a side project I threw together over a weekend and it's always had a bit of a "cobbler's children" status.

That said, the fact that it skews educational over salesy is very intentional -- I'd much rather have you find it to be a phenomenal resource and come back over and over (and then buy the book) than I would have it try to sell you hard on the first visit, which is probably unlikely to be optimal timing. To that point, I didn't see you mention signing up for the mailing list or not, but if you did, it's "working" as intended for visit one!

But yeah, overall, you're quite right to turn my own advice back on me!

dkrich• 12 years ago

I completely agree with the OP's advice. Without knowing anything about the site at all (I'm not familiar with your services at all so I can probably offer a pretty useful data point), I clicked through, looked for about five seconds at the Basecamp example, and clicked the dreaded back button. Not because the info isn't useful, but because I didn't have the desire to look beyond that right at that moment. Chances are that after a day or two I would have forgotten that the site existed and never returned (not a slight, it's just a realistic fact about most people). It's very unlikely that any resource is going to be so useful from a single use that users will frequent it from that day forth. It requires a bit of nudging/reminding over several interactions.

I think it's a mistake to avoid being salesy. People who want to improve their conversions (presumably your targeted customers) want solutions that your book or mailing list very well might solve. In fact it wasn't until I read the OP's comment that I realized you had a mailing list or training materials to sell.

One suggestion would be to put a WP-style banner at the top asking people to sign up for your mailing list. It isn't overbearing and if people aren't interested, they won't sign up.

Anyhow, not trying to sound condescending, just offering some advice that I think could be helpful.

mrxd• 12 years ago

...based on some of the feedback dished out in those teardowns.

It's a blog, not an app, so that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

V-24• 12 years ago

Very interesting website, but this mouse hover zoom thing is annoying. I'd only make it zoom in after a delay or (better still) a click.

hardikj• 12 years ago

I second that

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Doubly noted!

runeb• 12 years ago

I third that

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Noted!

measure2xcut1x• 12 years ago

I'm not sure this is the intended use case, but this website allowed me to check out a few products without having to sign up for a trial. I think I have free trial fatigue. It also introduced me to a few new products.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

That's a happy side effect, for sure.

corford2• 12 years ago

Just read the Optimizely tear down. Excellent. Have bookmarked and will buy the book shortly :)

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

High five!

jorisd0• 12 years ago

Interestingly, the Optimizely landing page looks completely different now, with a lot of the content that used to be there placed elsewhere on their website. Assuming that they used their own technology to improve their own landing page, we could perhaps conclude that their old information-heavy landing page wasn't good for conversion, and their newer page performs much better. I wonder why; the old landing page looks a lot better to me, and seems to make a lot more sense if you look at the theory behind it (as put forwards by the teardown).

corford2• 12 years ago

That is interesting. I agree with you, the old landing page was a lot better.

Maybe they've reached a point where they feel they are the market leader now and assume that anyone hitting their site already knows they're good and just wants to get straight in to a free trial?

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Wow, yeah, that's way different. I'd be very curious to see how it's performing in comparison. If you're gonna test, you might as well test big I suppose!

jakubp• 12 years ago

Thank you for doing this!

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

You're welcome!

V-24• 12 years ago

It's super instructive and extremely interesting. If anything, I'd like to see more BAD examples :) I should think they're easier to find!

V-24• 12 years ago

I'd be curious to see a review of StackOverflow as well (not that I think it makes a bad example, although surely one that targets a non-standard audience and falls into a somewhat different category than most)

reinier_s4g• 12 years ago

Thanks, this is awesome info! I passed it to my designer, he will find it even more useful.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

Great!

artsandsci• 12 years ago

Wanted to chime in about Samuel's consulting service. I was part of a project that Samuel did a teardown for. He went above and beyond to do a very thorough video and answer questions on the follow-up call. It's especially handy if you have a bunch of small UX issues you're working on and find yourself going in circles debating the same issues. His "first-time-user" take on things helps iron that out. He also points out a lot of things you havne't noticed because you're been staring at the same design for so long.

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

That's really kind of you to chime in -- would you mind emailing me at (anything) @useronboard.com so I can thank you personally?

V-24• 12 years ago

Netflix slide 34. "Opportunity for smiling faces or other positive imagery, to promote more encouragement".

You think so? I have mixed feelings about this.

I think designers tend to overload commercial websites with cheesy smiling faces.

Maybe if they could come up with some more creative idea for positive imagery instead... but happy people, perhaps it's actually good that they didn't resort to this cliche again (since - as you pointed out - they already showed us a bunch of people mysteriously smiling at the menu screen like some drugged Joker victims ;) )

samuelhulick28• 12 years ago

I wouldn't have minded seeing something to help keep things fresh and moving forward. Definitely didn't need to be cheesy or stock photography.

p.s. "drugged Joker victims" is a hilarious way to describe it!

User Onboarding

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