Tutorial flow

I. Situation

After reviewing internal data for day one users it became clear to our CTO that not enough users were completing their profiles after signing up. This was important because: in order to match users efficiently with surveys, we needed basic demographic profile data. Without that data, users were getting bounced from their first survey, which triggered a negative user experience and led to a high incidence rate of account abandonment.

My task was to significantly improve day one profile completions, which would improve the experience of new users by making it far more likely that they would qualify for and earn money from their first survey and then move on to more surveys and generate further revenue

II. User Research

I collaborated with our social media team to create a series of surveys and questionnaires to help us get a deeper understanding of the issues our new users were having. Our questions focused on frustrations users had when joining and with the survey-taking process in general. The results were somewhat shocking. The majority of respondents had serious issues when signing up, even users that became power users. When we did a follow-up survey to learn how users had gone about overcoming confusions as new users, we found that a majority had found outside resources for help, such as youtube videos and blog articles from fellow members.

Now at this point, it would be very easy to point a finger at our particular product and team and say "you idiots, you f*cked up!" But, after doing some thorough research on a long list of competitors, it became increasingly clear that this wasn't just an issue with our product, this was an industry-wide issue. I couldn't find a single example of a product in market research that was doing anything differently in terms of onboarding its users. Market research, in general, is a very insular industry full of jargon and processes that are industry-specific. This issue, in my opinion, arose from an industry with tunnel-vision that moved online before user experience was even a proper field. What I had discovered was: a golden opportunity to improve the user experience for our new users and significantly boost revenue.

III. Goals

My goal was to create an onboarding flow that accomplished the following:

1. Set expectations and educate new users on the survey taking process.
2. Have users complete their profile as part of the tutorial in order to ensure they have an optimal experience once they finish onboarding.
3. Reward users for taking the time to complete the tutorial.

IV. Process

Our onboarding flow and tutorial had to be unique and tailored to our needs and those of our users. That being said, my first course of action was to research respectable competitors' onboarding flows. I also invested in research around modern standards and considerations for onboarding flow UX. Then, I compiled a list of pros and cons and insights gained from that research and combined it with my own ideas to begin wireframing the basic flow.

The first step would be to funnel users into the tutorial after finishing their registration. Completing the tutorial would be benefit the user, and if I did my job well, it would offer an enjoyable experience and a great way to start their membership.

Next, I plotted the user's journey step by step.

1. An introduction that accomplished the following:

• A. Thanked users- to show gratitude
• B. Explained that the tutorial would prepare them for optimal success- to set expectations
• C. Promised a reward for completing the tutorial- to incentivise the user

2. A brief education on the steps involved and language they would encounter taking live surveys

3. A qualifier that accomplished:

• A. Reiterated the purpose of a qualifier
• B. Simulated the real experience of qualifying for a survey
• C. Collected the profile data we needed to later match them to surveys

4. A survey that accomplished:

• A. Illustrated to the user that surveys can be fun and painless
• B. Used questions that provided data for fun infographics and articles for our social media team's use
• C. Explained that the data they give us is encrypted and protected

5. A status page that accomplished:

• A. Shows the user the final status page that they would encounter at the end of live surveys
• B. Rewards the user for completing the tutorial
• C. Thanks the user for taking the time to complete the tutorial
• D. Moved the user directly to live surveys tailored to their profiles now that we had enough data to do so

V. Hypotheses

1. The tutorial would significantly increase profile completions for new users
2. Users that finished the tutorial would show, at minimum, a jump in day one revenue and ideally the average LTV of users accrued after the tutorial's launch would outpace the previous standard
3. By keeping the tutorial simple and incremented we would see only a marginal attrition rate from start to finish

VI. Design

VII. Results

1. The tutorial would significantly increase profile completions for new users.
   Profile completions increased from 43% to 90% for new users.
2. Adding a show/hide mechanism to the password field would reduce overall password errors
   We recorded an average 12% increase in day one revenue for new users.
3. Removing all extraneous links, including global navigation and footer navigation, would increase click through rate to the member area homepage
   Each page in the tutorial flow showed an exit rate of 4% or less.

VIII. Conclusion

Our new onboarding flow was a unicorn in terms of user experience optimization: it was an instant success. We saw an increase in revenue, positive data that backed it up, and follow up surveys showed that this new batch of users was far happier and had a firmer grasp of market research processes and jargon. Of course, we had plenty of competitors that mimicked our onboarding flow. But, as a designer, is there any greater compliment than to be copied? And as a user experience designer, is there any greater accomplishment than making thousands of users' lives a little less frustrating?