I Studied 1,460 Onboarding Flows. Here's What I Found. — Transcript

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1. 0:00I've studied over a thousand onboarding
2. 0:02flows to find out what makes good
3. 0:05onboarding and do we even need one? A
4. 0:08lot of what I've read says keep it
5. 0:10short, but based on what I found, the
6. 0:13average app has 25 onboarding screens.
7. 0:16The longest categories are finance,
8. 0:18[music] health and fitness, and
9. 0:20education. Seven out of 10 of these
10. 0:22longest apps are actually finance apps
11. 0:25as [music] well. Some of the apps with
12. 0:27the longest onboarding flows are also
13. 0:30one of the most successful ones. When we
14. 0:32look at apps with the shortest
15. 0:34onboarding flows, three of them are AI
16. 0:37products. So, maybe keeping our
17. 0:40onboarding flows short was never the
18. 0:43point. The best onboarding seem to
19. 0:45follow this pattern.
20. 0:46>> [music]
21. 0:46>> You sign up, set up your account, you
22. 0:48hit the aha moment. That's where you
23. 0:51actually feel the product's value. For
24. 0:53Airbnb, it's making your first booking.
25. 0:56For Netflix, it's finding and watching a
26. 0:58show. For Mobbin, it's finding a screen
27. 1:01or an animation that you love and saving
28. 1:03it to your collection. So, what are
29. 1:06these apps actually doing? The best
30. 1:08onboarding screens I've kept seeing had
31. 1:10one thing in common. They're not listing
32. 1:12features, they're selling the outcome.
33. 1:15Timehop does this really simply.
34. 1:17>> [music]
35. 1:17>> Their welcome screen is just showing the
36. 1:19product in action on both their mobile
37. 1:21app and desktop.
38. 1:23Runkeeper does this with animation. The
39. 1:26moment you open the app, you get a feel
40. 1:28for what it does without reading a
41. 1:30single word. And Elma [music] goes one
42. 1:32step further. It lets you try the core
43. 1:35experience before you sign up. I rarely
44. 1:38see apps with AI features who lets you
45. 1:40try it out before signing up an account.
46. 1:42[music]
47. 1:43And sometimes it could just be a copy
48. 1:45tweak like Superhuman. They turn a
49. 1:47boring sign up screen into a pitch with
50. 1:49logos on the side as social proof. Some
51. 1:52apps skip the pitch entirely and just
52. 1:55feel human. This is an app called One
53. 1:57Year. So, in their onboarding flow, they
54. 2:00included a founder's note, which had
55. 2:01[music] a handwritten signature and a
56. 2:03hand-drawn flower in it.
57. 2:05It's pretty cute. And Tinder [music]
58. 2:08acknowledge when your birthday is around
59. 2:09the corner.
60. 2:11Airbnb, well, this one's not even in the
61. 2:13onboarding flow, but when you
62. 2:15successfully list your first space, they
63. 2:17show you a video from their CEO.
64. 2:20It's a founder's touch at the aha
65. 2:22moment.
66. 2:24As for Basecamp, they put a personal
67. 2:26note from the CEO after you've created
68. 2:28an account. It feels like the product
69. 2:31was made with intention. And one of the
70. 2:33best onboarding flows add
71. 2:34personalization into the flow, and they
72. 2:37make it worth your time. 23% of apps
73. 2:40personalize during onboarding, with AI
74. 2:42apps at only 7%. It seems like AI tools
75. 2:46don't ask questions about your users up
76. 2:48front. They let the product learn from
77. 2:50us instead.
78. 2:52Looking at Tide's onboarding, it's short
79. 2:54and sweet. You just download the app,
80. 2:56answer two questions, watch it customize
81. 2:58your recommendations,
82. 3:00and it'll prompt you to sign up. That's
83. 3:02it, very simple.
84. 3:04Headspace found out that their users
85. 3:06come to their app with more than one
86. 3:07pain point to solve. So, instead of
87. 3:09asking users to pick just one goal that
88. 3:12they want to achieve [music] with
89. 3:12Headspace, they let them pick more than
90. 3:15one. It's only like a very simple tweak,
91. 3:17but it led to 10% increase in free trial
92. 3:20conversion. There are also other apps
93. 3:22that allow multi-intent queries. [music]
94. 3:26Focus Flight lets you choose your map
95. 3:28style during onboarding. It makes the
96. 3:31app [music] feel like yours before you
97. 3:34even started using it. Sometimes,
98. 3:36[music] it can be even simpler than
99. 3:37that. Dollar Shave Club tweaked the quiz
100. 3:40copy to be more conversational. This
101. 3:43alone led to 5% increase in
102. 3:45subscriptions. Some apps don't just
103. 3:48collect answers during the quiz. They
104. 3:49actually show you what those answers
105. 3:52unlocked. So, in Endless onboarding, you
106. 3:54answer six questions,
107. 3:56and then they show you this. You haven't
108. 3:59even used the product yet, but it
109. 4:00already feels like it's going to work.
110. 4:02[music]
111. 4:03Byte Pal does the same thing. After the
112. 4:05quiz, they build your personal plan and
113. 4:07then tell you exactly when you'll hit
114. 4:10your goal.
115. 4:12Brilliant [music] shows you courses that
116. 4:14are personalized to your responses.
117. 4:17As soon as you finish your onboarding
118. 4:19flow, your home page is already
119. 4:20populated with only the content that you
120. 4:22want to see.
121. 4:24Here's another one by Speak, a language
122. 4:26learning app. They ask you what language
123. 4:28you'd like to learn and your goals.
124. 4:30Then, in one simple screen, it tells
125. 4:32you, "In 2 months, you'll be able to
126. 4:35communicate while traveling in France."
127. 4:37There's a simple graph showing that
128. 4:39speaking helps you reach your goals
129. 4:40faster than reading. The [music] steps
130. 4:42before this screen already had you
131. 4:44speaking instead of typing.
132. 4:47So, out of 900-plus
133. 4:49apps and websites, 22% [music] of them
134. 4:51throws a paywall during onboarding. Some
135. 4:54apps also pair personalization with a
136. 4:57paywall.
137. 4:58The site pairs a quiz with a one-time
138. 5:01offer to drive urgency.
139. 5:04Timely does the same with a full page of
140. 5:06social proof before showing the paywall.
141. 5:09And Focus Flight makes the paywall
142. 5:11itself fun. The one-time offer, it's
143. 5:14shaped like a flight ticket, and your
144. 5:15phone vibrates as it gets printed out.
145. 5:18It's a paywall that actually feels
146. 5:19delightful. As for Grammarly, based on
147. 5:22your quiz answers, they recommend
148. 5:24tailored pricing plans. This alone led
149. 5:27to almost a 20% increase in plan
150. 5:29upgrades. Okay, some of these onboarding
151. 5:32flows are really long, yet they don't
152. 5:35feel like it. The onboarding flows that
153. 5:37I really love tend to make onboarding
154. 5:39flows feel short.
155. 5:41Out of 986 apps, Duolingo has one one
156. 5:45the longest onboarding flows. And if we
157. 5:47zoom in, it goes like this. You get
158. 5:50started, choose the language that you
159. 5:51want to learn, it learns about you, you
160. 5:53start your first lesson, get the
161. 5:55satisfaction of completing it, and then
162. 5:58you create an account. By that point,
163. 6:00you've already gone through 60 screens
164. 6:03before you even sign up. And the crazy
165. 6:05part is it doesn't even feel long. Okay,
166. 6:08so Bump's onboarding flow is creative.
167. 6:10Even the loading states are wild.
168. 6:13There's always something going on
169. 6:14throughout the onboarding flow. Smooth
170. 6:16animations on things like verification
171. 6:18that rarely [music] get special
172. 6:19treatment. It adds fun. It doesn't feel
173. 6:22like you're going through a boring
174. 6:24onboarding flow.
175. 6:26Bipul has 61 screens. The onboarding was
176. 6:29a lot of fun. It has really amazing
177. 6:31animations. The raccoon is quite
178. 6:33lovable. And you even get to name your
179. 6:35virtual pet raccoon.
180. 6:37Throughout the onboarding, they
181. 6:38emphasize the value. Like, your personal
182. 6:40plan is ready and you'll lose weight by
183. 6:42an exact date. And then bam, a paywall.
184. 6:45All right. So, another pattern I
185. 6:46noticed, some apps don't front-load all
186. 6:49the education to you. Cake Equity is a
187. 6:52great example. They're dealing with dry
188. 6:53concepts like company equity and vesting
189. 6:56schedules, and turns it into something
190. 6:58approachable with copy that reassures
191. 7:00users from time to time, and tooltips
192. 7:02that explain the impact of each step so
193. 7:05[music] that users feel like someone's
194. 7:06guiding them along the way. Even
195. 7:08something as small as a password field
196. 7:10that checks off requirements in real
197. 7:11time as you type, removes a reason to
198. 7:13get stuck. Maybe it's a progress
199. 7:15indicator, maybe it's microcopy. None of
200. 7:18this is flashy, but it makes the
201. 7:19experience feel effortless. To-do apps
202. 7:22does this really well, too. Instead of
203. 7:25giving users a blank empty state, they
204. 7:28show you something like this with no
205. 7:29guided tours, no pop-ups, just a little
206. 7:33nudge in the right place.
207. 7:35And when Mural replaced pop-ups and
208. 7:37banners with a clear six-step checklist,
209. 7:39it drove a 10% relative increase in
210. 7:42one-week retention. Checklists stick
211. 7:44around even after the user dismisses the
212. 7:46initial flow.
213. 7:48If you go on Mobbin and do an AI search
214. 7:50for onboarding checklist, you will find
215. 7:52more ideas like this.
216. 7:55Another pattern that I kept seeing is a
217. 7:57lot of apps show a custom screen before
218. 8:00the notification pop-up. Apparently, it
219. 8:02improves accept rates significantly.
220. 8:04Here's an example by Brilliant. I'll
221. 8:06remind you to learn so it becomes a
222. 8:08long-term habit. Cool.
223. 8:10Center takes it one step further. It
224. 8:12also teases you the notification that
225. 8:14you'll receive if you allow it. This
226. 8:16might explain why web onboarding is 21%
227. 8:20shorter than iOS. Mobile just has more
228. 8:22permission and paywall screens baked in.
229. 8:25Okay, this one surprised me. House split
230. 8:28their sign-up form into multiple screens
231. 8:30and they see a 15% increase in
232. 8:33conversions. Maybe the friction we add
233. 8:36in one place removes friction in
234. 8:38another. Culture plays a role here as
235. 8:41well. Users in Eastern markets tend to
236. 8:43be more comfortable with
237. 8:44information-heavy interfaces. So, what
238. 8:47feels like clutter to one audience feels
239. 8:49efficient to another, which is partly
240. 8:51why we can't just copy what worked. And
241. 8:53I don't think there's one right or wrong
242. 8:54way to design an onboarding flow that's
243. 8:57best in class. The ones that stuck with
244. 8:59me didn't feel like onboarding. What I
245. 9:02saw in common in these apps is that they
246. 9:04brought users to value quickly.
247. 9:07Sometimes it's adding delight to a very
248. 9:09long onboarding flow. Sometimes it's
249. 9:11letting users personalize their app
250. 9:13experience for themselves. And sometimes
251. 9:16it's getting out of the way. So, do we
252. 9:19even need onboarding?
253. 9:21Mobbin is a place to find design
254. 9:23inspiration. The product speaks for
255. 9:26itself. Same with AI chat apps. The
256. 9:29first prompt is where users find value.
257. 9:32For products like these, maybe the best
258. 9:34experience [music] is just to let users
259. 9:36get in fast and not have an onboarding
260. 9:39experience that gets in their way.
261. 9:42Maybe it all boils down to the product.
262. 9:44We had so much fun diving into the data,
263. 9:47and did you know that onboarding flows
264. 9:49are the second most searched on Mobbin?
265. 9:52For the next video, I have a feeling
266. 9:54that we're going to dive really deep
267. 9:55into dashboards and see what the data
268. 9:57tells us. So, stick around. Subscribe if
269. 10:00this vibes with you.