The stakes are high. According to recent industry data, the average SaaS free trial converts less than 25% of users to paying customers. That means roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of your trial users are walking away without ever becoming customers.

But the good news is that trial cancellations aren’t random. They follow patterns. Users drop off at predictable moments in their journey and struggle with the same features or tasks. Once you identify these patterns, you can systematically address them through trial optimization.

Understanding why trial optimization matters for reducing cancellations

Before diving into how to reduce cancellations, let’s be clear about what we mean by trial optimization and why it deserves your attention.

Trial optimization is the systematic process of improving every touchpoint in your free trial or freemium experience to increase the likelihood that users will see value, engage consistently, and ultimately convert to paying customers. It’s not about manipulation or dark patterns. It’s about removing unnecessary friction, clarifying value, and helping users succeed with your product.

The impact of effective trial optimization extends beyond conversion rates. When you optimize the trial experience, you also reduce customer acquisition costs, improve customer lifetime value, and build a stronger foundation for retention.

Understanding your specific trial model is the first step toward optimization. Different trial structures create different challenges and opportunities.

What is a freemium model?

The freemium model offers perpetual access to a restricted version of your product, either by limiting features or placing caps on usage. Think Spotify’s free tier with ads, or Canva’s basic design tools. The challenge with freemium is that users can stay indefinitely without converting. Your optimization goal is building reliance while strategically gating features that create urgency to upgrade.

What is a reverse trial?

In a reverse trial, users start with full access to all features for a limited time, then get moved to a freemium plan with limited capabilities. This approach, coined by growth leader Elena Verna, prioritizes maximum value upfront. Users experience everything your product can do, making the subsequent feature restrictions feel more pronounced. Trial optimization here focuses on ensuring users activate on premium features during that full-access window.

What is trial with payment?

This model requires payment information up front for full product access during a limited period. Users are charged automatically after the trial unless they cancel. The friction of providing credit card details means fewer signups but typically higher conversion rates, with opt-out trials converting at 49-60% compared to opt-in trials at 18-25%. Optimization here balances making signup worthwhile despite the friction while ensuring the experience justifies the automatic charge.

Five steps to audit and optimize your trial experience

Trial optimization looks different in each of these trial models, but one thing is true across the board: reducing cancellations requires a systematic approach.

You can’t fix what you don’t measure, and you can’t optimize what you don’t understand.

Here is a summary of the five-step framework for auditing your trial experience. For a detailed walkthrough, including specific templates and decision trees, see our article on auditing free user experiences.

Step 1: Identify drop-off points with data analysis

Examine your product analytics to pinpoint exactly where users abandon their trial journey.

• Track activation drop-offs in your onboarding flow
• Monitor which features users engage with versus ignore
• Calculate time-to-value and compare against churn timing
• Segment data by acquisition channel, trial type, and user cohort
• Layer in session recordings to see what users actually do before leaving

Step 2: Conduct user interviews to understand the “why”

Numbers show where users leave. Conversations reveal why.

• Interview 10-15 users, split between active trial users and those who churned
• Ask what value they found, what confused them, and what would make them pay
• Listen for the exact language they use to describe their experience
• Note any competitors or alternatives they mention for market context

Step 3: Benchmark your experience against market standards

Your users compare you to every tool they’ve used. Conduct some competitive analysis to gauge where you fall in the market.

• Document how competitors structure their trial experiences
• Screenshot monetization touchpoints, upgrade prompts, and limit notifications
• Study products your users mention in interviews, even if indirect competitors
• Identify where your experience creates more or less friction than market norms

Step 4: Map user actions with verb scoring

Break down every meaningful action in your product and score the friction required by running a verb scoring exercise.

• List discrete actions users can take (create, share, export, invite, etc.)
• Assign each a verb score from Anonymous to Gated
• Look for inconsistencies in how similar actions are gated
• Identify if you’re giving away too much or asking too soon

Step 5: Connect insights to create an optimization roadmap

Synthesize your findings to prioritize what to fix first.

• Friction without reason: unnecessary barriers compared to competitors
• Value leaks: popular free features that don’t drive conversion
• Invisible gates: paywalls users hit without understanding why
• Poorly timed friction: asking users to pay before they’ve seen value

Prioritize optimizations by impact (users affected), confidence (data supports it), effort (time to implement), and market alignment (are you an outlier).

Six strategies for reducing trial cancellations

Once you’ve audited your trial experience and identified optimization opportunities, you will have a clear roadmap for addressing issues.

Plenty of strategies might arise in your research. Here are a few themes we see often.

Accelerate time-to-first-value

The faster users experience value, the less likely they are to cancel. Industry benchmarks suggest that users should reach their first “aha moment” within 48 hours of signup.

Design your onboarding to guide users directly toward the action that delivers value. Use progress bars and checklists to create clear paths forward.

Remove any friction between signup and first value. If users need to integrate other tools, fill out profiles, or configure settings before experiencing core benefits, you’re creating opportunities for abandonment. Save non-essential setup for after users have seen value.

Provide personalized onboarding experiences

Companies using personalized experiences see conversion rates improve by up to 67%. Generic onboarding treats all users the same, but different user segments have different needs, different technical sophistication, and different use cases.

Segment users based on their role, company size, or stated goals during signup. A solo entrepreneur using your project management tool has different needs than a project manager at a 100-person company. Your onboarding should reflect these differences.

Use progressive disclosure to reveal features as they become relevant. Don’t overwhelm new users with every capability on day one. Instead, introduce advanced features once users have mastered the basics.

Implement strategic reminder systems

Trials between 7-14 days convert better than longer trials because they create urgency. But urgency only works if users remember they’re on a trial.

Send regular emails and in-app notifications informing users about remaining trial time. These reminders should do more than count down days. Each one should emphasize value, highlight features users haven’t explored, or address specific pain points.

Gate features strategically based on usage patterns

In our experience optimizing for SaaS, offering too many free features can actually hurt conversion rates. Users need to experience value from free features while simultaneously understanding what they’re missing from paid capabilities.

Place prompts for premium features adjacent to free ones. PDF Converter, for example, offers free file conversion but positions the premium, higher-quality option nearby. This ensures users understand the upgrade path without being pushy.

Use clear visual cues like lock icons, “Pro” badges, or color contrasts to differentiate free from paid features.

Provide proactive support during critical moments

Customer support engagement during trial periods can significantly boost conversion rates.

Don’t wait for users to ask for help. Implement triggered messages based on behavior patterns. If a user hasn’t logged in for three days, send a helpful email with tips. If someone tries to use a gated feature multiple times, offer a personalized demo or support call.

For high-value potential customers, consider human touchpoints. A quick call from customer success at day three of a 14-day trial can answer questions, provide personalized guidance, and significantly increase conversion likelihood.

Design thoughtful cancellation flows

Not every cancellation is preventable, but many are. When users attempt to cancel, use that moment as an opportunity to understand why and potentially offer alternatives.

Implement exit surveys that capture cancellation reasons. According to data on subscription churn, understanding why users leave is critical for preventing future cancellations. Are they leaving because of the price? Missing features? Poor onboarding? Bugs?

Based on cancellation reasons, offer segment-specific alternatives. If someone is canceling due to price, offer a discount or payment plan. If they barely used the product after the trial, extend the trial. If they’re leaving due to missing features, ask which features would keep them.

Common mistakes that increase trial cancellations

Even well-intentioned optimization efforts can backfire. Avoid these common mistakes that actually increase cancellation rates.

Making cancellation difficult

Some SaaS companies deliberately make cancellation difficult, requiring users to call or email rather than cancel with a simple click. This dark pattern might delay cancellations temporarily, but it can destroy trust and create negative word-of-mouth.

Make cancellation simple. The goal isn’t to trap users; it’s to create such a good experience that they don’t want to leave.

Gating core value too aggressively

If users can’t experience your product’s core value without upgrading, they’ll cancel before converting. The free version should deliver genuine utility while creating a desire for premium features.

Neglecting mobile trial experiences

With increasing mobile usage, trial experiences must work seamlessly across devices.

If your onboarding is desktop-optimized but breaks on mobile, you’re creating cancellations for a substantial user segment.

Sending generic email communications

Automated email sequences that ignore user behavior feel impersonal and often go unread. According to research on trial optimization, personalized communication based on user activity significantly outperforms generic campaigns.

If a user hasn’t logged in since signing up, an email about advanced features is irrelevant. If they’re actively using the product daily, countdown reminders may feel pushy. Segment communications based on engagement levels.

Trial optimization frequently asked questions

What’s the ideal trial length to minimize cancellations?

The optimal length depends on your product’s complexity and how quickly users can experience value. Simple products often perform better with 7-14 day trials that create urgency.

Complex B2B tools may need 30-60 days for users to properly evaluate capabilities. If you are completely lost, start with 14 days and adjust based on your activation data and time-to-value metrics.

Should I require a credit card for trial signup?

This decision significantly impacts both signup volume and conversion rates.

Opt-out trials (credit card required) convert higher but generate fewer signups. Opt-in trials (no credit card) convert lower but attract more users.

The right choice depends on whether you prioritize higher conversion rates per trial or a larger volume of trials and how much more utility the full tier offers versus a free trial.

Most product-led companies start with opt-in trials to maximize exposure, then consider opt-out trials once they’ve optimized the trial experience.

How can I tell if my trial cancellations are normal or problematic?

Track cohort-specific metrics. If certain user segments, acquisition channels, or trial lengths show notably different cancellation patterns, those differences reveal opportunities for targeted optimization.

What’s the most important metric to track for trial optimization?

While trial-to-paid conversion rate matters, activation rate is often more predictive.

Activation measures whether users complete key actions that indicate they’ve experienced value. Research shows users who reach activation are significantly more likely to convert.

Define your activation criteria based on behaviors that correlate with conversion, then optimize to increase the percentage of trial users who activate.

How often should I test and iterate on my trial experience?

Trial optimization is continuous, not a one-time project.

High-performing SaaS companies test constantly. Start with your highest-impact opportunities identified during your audit, then implement a regular testing cadence.

Track results for statistical significance before making changes permanent. Plan quarterly reviews of your trial metrics to identify new optimization opportunities as your product and market evolve.

Can I reduce trial cancellations without changing my product?

Yes. Many cancellations stem from poor onboarding, unclear value communication, or inadequate support rather than product deficiencies.

You can significantly reduce cancellations by improving onboarding sequences, providing better in-app guidance, personalizing the trial experience, implementing proactive support, and strategically positioning upgrade prompts.

That said, if users consistently cancel, citing missing features or bugs, product improvements may be necessary alongside trial optimization.

Build a systematic approach to trial optimization

Reducing SaaS trial cancellations isn’t about quick fixes or growth hacks. It requires systematic analysis of your trial experience, a deep understanding of user behavior and needs, and continuous optimization based on data.

The five-step audit framework provides a structured approach: analyze data to find drop-off points, interview users to understand why they leave, benchmark against market expectations, map actions with verb scoring, and synthesize insights into a prioritized roadmap. Each step builds on the previous one to create a picture of optimization opportunities.

Implementation matters as much as analysis. Accelerate time-to-value, personalize onboarding, implement strategic reminders, gate features based on usage patterns, provide proactive support, and design thoughtful cancellation flows. These six strategies address the most common causes of trial cancellations, but keep in mind that your analysis will likely surface other unique issues.

Most importantly, treat trial optimization as an ongoing discipline rather than a one-time project. User expectations evolve, competitors improve their experiences, and your product adds features. Regular review and iteration ensure your trial experience continues performing as your business grows.

At The Good, we’ve helped SaaS companies reduce trial cancellations and improve conversion rates through our Digital Experience Optimization Program. We conduct comprehensive audits using heatmaps, session recordings, and user research to identify exactly where trial users encounter friction. Then we build custom optimization roadmaps and validate improvements through experimentation.

Ready to reduce your trial cancellations and accelerate growth? Schedule an introductory call to discuss how we can optimize your trial experience for better conversion and retention.

The post How Do You Reduce Cancellations During SaaS Free Trials? appeared first on The Good.

What is going wrong? The most common assumption is a poor product experience, but something else could be the culprit: SaaS products take too long to deliver value.

If users don’t quickly experience how software makes their life better, they will delete the app or simply abandon their account.

If you find your users in this position, accelerating time-to-value should be at the top of your priority list. Reducing the time it takes a customer to find value in your product can increase customer satisfaction by 10% to 30%, which will have a direct impact on retention.

In this article, we’ll share how strategies like optimizing onboarding, personalizing the user experience, and implementing quick wins can help you improve time-to-value and reduce churn.

What is time-to-value (TTV)?

Time-to-value is the duration of time it takes a user to experience the value of your SaaS product. It measures the time lapsed from when a user starts engaging with your tool to when they have an ‘Aha!’ moment about the positive impact on their life.

Types of time-to-value:

• Time-to-basic value: A metric measuring the time it takes a customer to see any value from your product.
• Time-to-exceed value: A metric measuring the time it takes to exceed a user’s expectations about your product’s value.
• Long time-to-value SaaS: A product or service that takes a longer duration of time to realize value (sometimes weeks or months). Usually, for SaaS, this is true when it takes time to integrate systems or data. In this case, it’s important to demonstrate incremental value during the journey to full value.
• Short time-to-value SaaS: A product or service that meets an immediate need, such as a transactional software product with a one-time use.
• Immediate time-to-value SaaS: A product or service with an instant reward for customer actions, such as a picture resizing or link shortening software.

How to calculate time-to-value

The simple time-to-value formula is:
TTV = Time that value is realized – Time user starts engaging with your product

But while the concept of time to value is pretty straightforward, how you calculate it will vary.

Your unique product, user, and definition of value will help guide the inputs of your TTV formula. Here is a quick overview of how to calculate time to value for your business:

1. Define value: What does finding value mean in the context of your product? Usually, it is how long it takes a user to complete a specific task that showcases the core function of your product.
2. Define the start time: When do you start measuring the users’ path to value? What is the starting point of their journey? Usually, it’s during the registration or onboarding process.
3. Define the end time: What is the moment a customer realizes value for your product? You’ll likely need to conduct research to pinpoint the ‘Aha!’ moment (more on that later). Typically, it takes the form of achieving a specific outcome, uncovering a benefit, or reaching a milestone.
4. Calculate the duration: Measure the time between the start and end points. This is your time to value.

Source

Some examples of how actual SaaS companies measure time-to-value include: how long it takes for a user to upgrade from free to paid, how quickly users start a new project after onboarding, or how long it takes to get the first ROI from the tool.

Why is time-to-value important?

Time-to-value directly impacts product success. It is an early indicator of retention and churn, and can help uncover areas for optimization.

The metric is especially important for companies with freemium or free trial pricing models. When your monetization happens during the product experience, you need to show your value explicitly and efficiently. Time-to-value is a way to measure if you are doing so successfully.

How to improve time-to-value

Demonstrating your value early on takes your SaaS product from ‘nice-to-have’ to ‘can’t live without.’ Here are a few strategies to help you do it.

Identify your product’s ‘Aha!’ moments

To get to the ‘Aha!’ moments faster, you first need to understand what those eye-opening experiences are. What turns casual users into lifelong customers? What is the first product experience that clearly shows your product’s potential impact on a user’s life?

To identify those ‘Aha!’ moments (or the end time in your formula), there is nothing more effective than talking to and studying the users themselves.

With user research methods like session recordings, usability tests, interviews, and surveys, you can uncover the intrinsic motivations of your users and take stock of their goals. What you find in your UX research process will help identify which product experiences will be most valuable to them and help prioritize which to show off early.

For example, if a new user of your project management tool wants to gain transparency across their team, the product should show them how to do that before it does anything else.

It will be tempting to bombard new users with all the amazing features of your tool, but to provide the quickest route to value for each user, you have to understand their objectives and why they are exploring your tool in the first place.

Personalize the user experience

The meaning of value will vary across your user base and their unique needs. For example, a 10-strong team signing up for an analytics tool may find different early value than a one-person team looking to monitor their small business. Or someone who has less tech know-how might need more hand-holding, while someone already comfortable with complex systems might want to see more intricate aspects upfront.

That’s why it’s important to personalize the user experience to accelerate time-to-value.

It doesn’t have to be 1:1 personalization, though. There’s a good chance there will be groups of users who have similar goals. Gain insight into your users, identify patterns, and create experiences for those groups. Start with a few segments and then continue to add on personalization if you see it’s working.

Optimize the registration and onboarding experiences

One significant lever for accelerating time to value is improving early product experiences.

The ROPES framework, designed to help product-first leaders think about, optimize, and improve the end-to-end customer experience, shows how the R (registration) and O (onboarding) experiences might help or hinder TTV.

While the other elements of the customer journey can play a part, the biggest drivers for reducing TTV lie in those first stages of the product experience.

While there is no exact blueprint for optimization, there are some commonalities you can bear in mind for improving registration and onboarding:

• Take it slowly: The last thing you want to do is dump everything onto new signups. Avoid overwhelming by trickling out information and allowing users to go at their own pace.
• Put the user first: The best experiences focus on the needs of each individual user and what they need to know to get started.
• Leverage novel UI mechanisms: Make use of novel mechanisms like tooltips or a modal window to gently guide users through the registration onboarding process.
• Give clear step-by-step instructions: Clearly guide users through your registration and onboarding step-by-step. Make it straightforward to complete, and be sure to highlight your product’s use cases during the process.
• Follow good form design principles: Show clear progress, give feedback as they go, and group common information to make it easily digestible.
• Collect feedback: Track and measure how successful your process is by asking new signups for their feedback.

Your product experience should be fluid. The needs of your user base will change over time, and you must listen to user feedback if you want to continue to improve the experience and showcase your value more efficiently.

Implement quick wins for users

Quick wins are a great tactic for improving time to value. Get your new users to complete small actions quickly so they start to feel comfortable using your tool ASAP.

Quick wins create initial momentum for users, playing into the psychology that when you feel accomplished or successful, you’re inclined to continue succeeding. This is similar to basketball players who gain confidence as they continue scoring points (hot streak) or that feeling when you have a task list of chores to do and you begin crossing them off one by one. Momentum is something that is built and will carry users forward.

As you build their confidence with your tool, you can use those quick wins to show the valuable features or functionality that is relevant to them.

Measure and iterate

No product experience gets it exactly right the first time, and there are always ways to continue improving your time to value.

Just like your users are learning how to use your product, you’re also learning how they use it. The more clarity you get on challenges, use cases, and goals, the easier it’ll be to create a valuable experience early on.

Continuously test different journeys, tweak steps based on user feedback, and don’t forget to track everything you do to see what works and what doesn’t.

Signs your time-to-value is too slow

It’s true that there is always room for TTV improvement, but how do you know you have a big problem?

Here are some red flags to look out for:

• High churn or low retention rates: Customers are leaving your service early in their subscription cycle, usually the first 30, 60, or 90 days.
• Low upgrade rate: Users don’t upgrade on their own, and/or sales teams get resistance to any account expansion or new offering pitches. This means customers are either seeing too much or too little value on their current account level.
• Low engagement with core features: Infrequent logins or low engagement with your core product functions/features means users don’t see the value of your product.
• Poor NPS: The feedback you receive is largely neutral or even negative.
• High customer acquisition costs: When users abandon, and you have to replace lost users, your cost of acquiring new customers will increase.
• Customer success or sales complaints: Your customer success team spends almost all their time resolving issues, or the sales team can’t clearly show the ROI of your product.

If you see one or many of these red flags, it’s time to start a new UX research cycle and dig into where there is room to optimize and show your value earlier on.

To get an expert’s POV on the situation, reach out to The Good. We can help uncover where and why your users are dropping off, and help you fix it.

The post Accelerating Time-to-Value: How SaaS Products Get Users to ‘Aha!’ Moments Faster appeared first on The Good.

Drawing from those years of experience improving SaaS platforms, we’ve identified and addressed form fatigue across various products. In this article, we’ll show you how to uncover and fix it effectively.

Keep reading to learn:

• Research methods for uncovering form fatigue
• User behavior patterns that indicate your users suffer from form fatigue
• Actionable strategies to improve form fatigue and increase conversions

What is form fatigue?

Form fatigue occurs when a user gets frustrated and/or exhausted by the complexity or length of a digital form. The poor design of the form directly contributes to this sense of fatigue and causes them to abandon.

Psychologically, users are conditioned to prefer experiences that require minimal cognitive effort. We want experiences that accomplish our goals simply and quickly. When a user experience does not meet those instincts, conversion rates drop.

Form fatigue is typically caused by things like:

• Content fatigue: When excessive textual/visual content on a page overwhelms users, hindering their ability to find relevant content for successful task completion.
• Heavy cognitive load: When undue mental effort is required to accomplish a task, causing analysis paralysis or frustration, leading to abandonment.
• High interaction cost: When a task or interaction requires significant time and/or effort to accomplish, possibly creating frustration and resulting in abandonment.

How to identify form fatigue

When working on a product day in and day out, you might be too close to the forms to know if fatigue is happening. That is where research can help.

Getting an external, real user perspective can expose things like content fatigue, heavy cognitive load, or high interaction cost in your forms.

So, the best way to identify form fatigue is through user research. While there are plenty of methods, the best for this particular scenario include:

• Session recordings
• Heatmaps
• Scroll maps
• Click maps
• User tests

With your raw data in hand, look out for some specific patterns that might indicate form fatigue:

• Scanning: A user scrolls over content (text or images) at a higher scroll rate on mobile, while on desktop they might hover over some words or phrases, or completely skip over content altogether.
• Halted Scrolling: The user pauses on the site to possibly engage with content/reorient themselves or this pause may indicate that the user perceives a false bottom.
• U-turns: When a user back navigates to the previous page they were just on, using either breadcrumbs or the back button.

These research patterns can point to moments when users are experiencing form fatigue and the digital experience can be optimized.

7 ways to prevent form fatigue

If you suspect form fatigue or uncover evidence of it in your research, don’t fret. There is plenty you can do to fix it. For companies building new forms, these tips can also be used to prevent form fatigue in the first place.

1. Execute the 10 principles of good form design

The first, and arguably the most important, way to limit form fatigue is to understand and act on the principles of good form design. Website forms are one of your most important onsite elements. They are the crux of a user’s path to conversion.

Bad form design can cause users to drop off during critical conversion opportunities, leaving them frustrated or confused, while great form design creates a seamless user experience that can increase conversion rates and leave users feeling excited about a product or company.

These are the ten established form design principles to help you create better experiences:

1. Priming: Prepare users by setting clear expectations about the form’s purpose, length, and benefits before they begin.
2. Error Prevention: Design forms to minimize user mistakes by using constraints, clear labels, and smart defaults.
3. Error Recovery: Make it easy for users to identify, understand, and fix errors with real-time validation and clear messaging.
4. Feedback: Provide immediate, actionable responses to user inputs to build confidence and guide progression.
5. Proximity: Group related fields together logically to make forms easier to navigate and process mentally.
6. Convention: Follow familiar design patterns to ensure users can complete the form intuitively without unnecessary friction.
7. Momentum: Encourage users to keep going by visually or textually reinforcing their progress through the form.
8. Proof: Build trust and reduce hesitation with evidence like security assurances, testimonials, or recognizable logos.
9. Demonstrated Value: Highlight the benefits of completing the form so users feel their effort is worthwhile.
10. Perceived Effort Level: Design forms to appear simple and manageable by minimizing visible fields and breaking longer forms into steps.

To learn more, we explore these principles and include 32 good form design examples in this companion article.

2. Ask for minimal information upfront

In research and testing for clients, we have found that asking for less information upfront may help to prevent form fatigue and in turn, increase initial registrations. The highest converting forms ask for only the necessary information in order to register, saving additional information for post-registration. That could be as little as just the email or include name and other essential information.

Once the user is registered, they can be guided through additional steps to help personalize the account to their needs, for example, more personal information, settings, shipping preferences, choosing a plan, adding orders, etc.

3. Reduce form length perception

For forms that can’t reduce the information required, research shows users’ perception of form length can be as important as the actual length.

You can reduce perceived effort with strategies like:

• Chunking forms into steps: Break longer forms into smaller, manageable sections and use clear step titles (e.g., “Step 1: Account Details”).
• Collapsible sections: Use collapsible form fields to make the interface less overwhelming while still providing access to all necessary fields.
• Auto-advance fields: Automatically move users to the next field when input is complete (e.g., credit card information split into boxes).

4. Make clear suggestions

Simplify decision-making by limiting options and highlighting recommended choices. You can use autofill and predictive text to reduce manual input and create an intuitive, logical flow that guides users naturally through the form.

5. Optimize for mobile or desktop

At this point, we shouldn’t even have to say it, but you’d be surprised how often teams forget to tailor the experience for the correct device. Form fatigue is exasperated when the design doesn’t function on the user interface being navigated. The design should adapt for mobile or desktop users, regardless of whether you are an app-first or desktop-first product.

One essential way to do this is by adjusting keyboard inputs. For example, when a field is asking for a zip code or phone number, default to the numeric keyboard on mobile to make it as simple as possible to fill out the form.

6. Use gamification to entertain

Gamifying the form-filling experience can motivate users to complete it. So, when you have an extensive form that needs filling and can’t be simplified, add elements like milestones, progress rewards, and personal messages to keep users entertained and motivated. Celebrate small wins when users complete sections and consider unlocking discounts, offers, or badges as users complete each step. It’s hard to be fatigued when you’re having fun.

7. Leverage post-signup emails

Preventing form fatigue can also happen by supplementing information in other ways. Use post-signup emails to collect information that isn’t imperative to registration. For example, a user’s birthday could come in handy for rewards later on, but it is better to collect it post-signup to prevent form fatigue.

Additionally, the email body can link the user to connect new apps to their account, access more discounts, watch tutorials, download resources, or contact their team.

Many SaaS companies also send emails from a real person to encourage users to respond if they have questions or need help. These personal follow-ups can also help recapture users who abandon the form initially.

To prevent form fatigue in UX design, focus on strategies that simplify and streamline the user’s form-filling experience. Remember, the goal is to make form completion feel easy and painless for the user.

Ready to eliminate form fatigue and boost conversions?

Form fatigue can quietly undermine your UX efforts, leading to missed conversions and frustrated users. However, with thoughtful research, clear design principles, and actionable strategies, you can create forms that not only engage users but also encourage them to complete the journey.

At The Good, we specialize in helping businesses like yours eliminate friction and create digital experiences that drive results. See this form improvement example from our work with Helium 10.

If you’re ready to optimize your forms and increase conversions, reach out to our team today. Let’s work together to turn your users into loyal customers.

The post A Guide For Preventing Form Fatigue To Increase Conversions & Improve UX appeared first on The Good.

There is nothing more frustrating than feeling like a company is giving you the bait and switch. In user experience design, we call this poor priming and expectation-setting, and it is a violation of one of the six Heuristics for Digital Experience Optimization.

Heuristics, by definition, are mental shortcuts used to solve problems quickly and effectively. They allow people to speed up analysis and make informed, efficient decisions. Knowing our brains are wired to take shortcuts and make quick decisions, you can imagine how heuristics play a crucial role in how customers navigate and perceive digital experiences.

Digital experiences that violate user heuristics are bad for users and bad for business. So, let’s take a look at how to address the priming and expectation-setting heuristic in a way that improves the user experience.

What is the priming and expectation-setting heuristic?

Priming and expectation setting is a heuristic that sets users up for success by clarifying how the interface will perform, indicating what actions users should take, and managing user expectations.

Digital experiences that adhere to this heuristic may apply a tactic like explicitly mentioning free shipping early in the journey to reduce cart abandonment rates or sharing estimated delivery dates to manage customer expectations.

Priming and expectation setting is one of the six Heuristics of Digital Experience Optimization developed by our team at The Good. The full list includes:

1. Priming & Expectation Setting
2. Trust & Authority
3. Ease
4. Benefits & Unique Selling Points
5. Directional Guidance
6. Incentives

These heuristics theme common optimization issues and opportunities. Analyzing your digital experience with heuristics in mind keeps the user at the center of analyses and guides your strategy toward building journeys that feel familiar, do what they say, and function intuitively.

Identify violations of this heuristic with user research patterns

Before you can start to address any heuristic to improve the digital experience, you have to understand if, where, and when users are getting stuck.

To understand if your digital experience is violating the priming and expectation-setting heuristic, a great place to start is user research. Set goals, pick the right method for your needs, and start talking to your users (or observing their behavior).

As you analyze the research, look for patterns including:

• Rage clicks: User clicks on an element multiple times without getting the desired or expected result. Usually, this signifies unclear system status, meaning your user doesn’t provide enough cues, semantics, or timely feedback to keep users informed.
• Low directness: Users can be seen scrolling through the site looking for specific content, struggling to find items of interest, and possibly hesitating on the site, suggesting uncertainty. This can be a sign of unmet expectations, meaning your system’s interactions, navigation, or language don’t match users’ mental models of real-world or site conventions.
• Price sensitivity: Users express concern about product or shipping prices, potentially leading them to abandon. This often indicates poor priming because of unclear or missing elements in the interface that typically guide user behavior and inform them of what to expect.

The good news is once you identify the patterns, you can address them with tactics to improve priming and expectation setting. Doing so is an ethical way to improve customer sentiment and increase conversions.

Real-life examples of using priming and expectation-setting to improve the user experience

Most companies have a chance to improve priming and expectation setting across their digital journey. Here are a few real-world examples that can inspire your efforts to adhere more closely to the heuristic. You might see some pretty compelling rewards for your improvements.

Offline download delivery priming

We worked with the largest digital repair manual database, eManualOnline, to find opportunities to improve their on-site experience. Following similar recommendations as outlined above to identify violations of optimization heuristics, we conducted user testing. It revealed that users were confused about how eManualOnline delivers their manuals, as some are digital downloads and others are physical editions.

Because of the mixed delivery method messages throughout the site, customers felt a lack of trust when confronted with the website.

We decided to test out highlighting delivery methods to clarify any confusion and increase transactions. We A/B tested 2 variants: a control and a variant that made delivery methods clearer at various touchpoints.

The variant with clear delivery method language showed a 14% lift over the control. Clarifying access methods for offline downloads resulted in stronger purchase intent. This is a clear example of priming and expectation setting at work.

Permission priming in user onboarding

When onboarding a user to a new digital experience (app or desktop service), priming and expectation setting can strongly impact churn metrics.

Here’s a good example from Scan & Translate. It reminds users that in order to use the scan features and gain value from the app, they need to grant camera permissions to the system.

Preparing, or priming, a user before you ask permission to access their OS makes it more likely that they’ll comply with your request. This is vitally important because your product might not be able to provide value to the user without access.

Expectation-setting without compromising brand language

Residential furnishings brand, Knoll, has a range of uniquely crafted and handmade products. The care and detail that goes into each piece means longer lead times on shipping and delivery.

When we took on a project to improve their digital experience, we tested out adjusting their copy to better reflect the craftsmanship of their work.

Changing the wording from “Lead time: 8 weeks” messaging to “Made for you. Ships in 8 weeks” led to our biggest test win of the year in terms of revenue.

It created synergy between the brand’s needs (priming purchasers that shipment won’t happen for a while) and the customer’s needs (understanding why shipment won’t happen for a while). It also had the benefit of turning a challenge (long lead times) into a compelling conversion booster (custom-made).

Priming in form design

Priming is one of the first principles of form design. It keeps users on the path to form completion by clearly setting expectations and ensuring they don’t drop off due to surprises.

Priming in form design takes many forms but often is provided through progress bars. Adding this element tells the user what they can expect from the process during or before completion of the form, setting the expectation so that users come prepared to fully fill out the form.

See this example from Etsy. The company features a progress bar with clear labels to prime users about what to expect during the mobile checkout process.

To set expectations with a form, you can also be clear about the end result or value users receive upon completing the form. This can generate excitement for the product, motivating form completion.

The “Try Demo” button from ServiceNow, shown below, primes users to know what they can expect after they fill out the form. Users will get to demo the product and can also expect everything in the bulleted list to the left.

Using heuristics to theme your roadmap of opportunities

To transform the priming and expectation-setting heuristic into an actionable improvement opportunity for your digital property, consider building a strategic roadmap.

Leverage user research to identify common patterns indicating violation of the six Heuristics for Digital Experience Optimization. Prioritize those opportunities based on their potential for impacting KPIs. Then, develop a plan to test improvements with a theme-based roadmap.

Taking the time to really understand where users are getting stuck in your digital experience will set you up to make more efficient and impactful decisions.

Our team can support you on your journey through a custom Digital Experience Optimization Program. You’ll have access to an entire team of researchers, strategists, designers, and developers that will help remove violations of the priming and expectation-setting heuristic (and more).

The post How To Leverage The Priming & Expectation Setting Heuristic To Drive Conversions appeared first on The Good.

Your goal might be to get someone to click the “sign up” button, but what then? Making sure the next steps are easy and insightful can do wonders for your business. A really good onboarding experience can:

• Increase retention by helping new users quickly understand the value of your product
• Improve customer satisfaction by reducing friction and confusion
• Increase conversion rates by converting free trial users into paying customers
• Improve product feedback by gaining insight into how users interact with your product

The basics of great user onboarding experiences

What does an excellent user onboarding experience look like? This is tricky because the experience will vary depending on your user base and their needs. For example, a 10-strong team signing up for a predictive analytics tool is going to look a lot different from a one-person company signing up for a notetaking app.

It depends on the savviness of the user, too. Someone who has less tech know-how might need more hand-holding, while someone already comfortable with complex systems might want to skip parts of the process.

That being said, while we can’t map out an exact blueprint for every single user onboarding flow, there are some commonalities to bear in mind:

• Put the user first: The best user onboarding experiences focus on the needs of each individual user and what they need to know to get started. It might be tempting to show off your awesome product features, but now’s the time to be humble and empathic.
• Promote user action: Quick wins are a must in any onboarding experience. Focus on getting new signups to complete small actions quickly so they start to feel comfortable using the tool ASAP.
• Push the value: Your onboarding experience should highlight the value of your product and why it’s different from similar ones out there. Ideally, you want to help the user gain value as soon as possible—this will ensure they keep coming back.
• Collect feedback: A good onboarding experience should meet the needs of the user. Track and measure how successful your process is by seeing how many people stick around and asking new signups for their feedback. You can use this to tweak and improve the process.
• Take it slowly: The last thing you want to do is information dump everything onto new signups. Avoid overwhelming by trickling out information and allowing users to go at their own pace.

11 best user onboarding examples and what you can learn from them

1. Canva – Let users choose their adventure

Tailoring your user onboarding flow to the unique needs of each user will increase loyalty—and usage. No one wants to walk through a demo that’s not relevant to them. Canva navigates this perfectly by asking new signups what they plan to use the tool for. The answer they choose then guides the rest of the onboarding experience.

What we can learn from Canva’s onboarding experience: Put users in charge of their own destiny. Not only does this create a highly-relevant process for new signups, but it also gives you more information about how people are using your product.

2. Asana – Personalize the experience

Someone has just chosen to use your product over the thousands of others out there—that’s huge. Now it’s time to make them feel special. Asana does this by asking a handful of questions about the new user and then helping them set up a new project based on their actual needs. This means new signups are ready to hit the ground running as soon as they finish onboarding.

What we can learn from Asana’s onboarding experience: Get to know your users and help them get started as quickly as possible. This sets them up for a series of quick wins that will increase the chances of ongoing satisfaction and loyalty.

3. HubSpot – Incorporate a user checklist

Signing up for a new tool can be overwhelming. There’s so much to learn and users can often feel like they’re a long way from where they need to be when they get started. HubSpot reduces the overwhelm by providing a very clear user checklist. New signups can work their way through the checklist at their own pace, but they can always see what’s up next and how many more items there are to tick off.

What we can learn from HubSpot’s onboarding experience: Create a checklist that users can work through at their own pace. Make sure each item provides a quick win so that new signups feel confident moving on to the next step.

4. Toggl – Create bitesize tours

75% of people believe video is the best way to learn how a product works. But dumping all the information a new user needs to know in one long video is a surefire way to overwhelm—who really wants to sit through an hour-long video that may or may not even be relevant to their needs? Toggl addresses this by implementing a series of bitesize videos that cover each feature.

At the end of the video series, users get positive reinforcement from Toggle and encouragement to continue using the tool.

What we can learn from Toggl’s onboarding experience: Give new users small chunks of information at a time and provide positive reinforcement every time they take the next step.

5. StoryChief – Combine user testimonials with a product tour

There’s nothing quite like a bit of social proof to reassure people they’re making the right decision. StoryChief weaves testimonials into its onboarding process to give new users peace of mind and increase the chances of conversion. The onboarding process itself consists of an in-depth walkthrough video and a user checklist to get new signups started.

What we can learn from StoryChief’s onboarding experience: Don’t underestimate the power of social proof. Incorporate customer testimonials, reviews, and case studies into your onboarding process to give new users the confidence to continue.

6. Notion – Create an interactive walkthrough

Notion has a mind-boggling number of use cases it can be tricky to condense all the possibilities into one simple onboarding process. To tackle this, the tool has created an interactive product walkthrough that lets users pick and choose what information they want to learn first.

What we can learn from Notion’s onboarding experience: Don’t try and cram every use case into your onboarding process. Instead, give new signups the option to choose which product features are most important to them and encourage them to take action with interactive to-dos.

7. Webflow – Use tooltips to grab user attention

The backend of a tool often looks very different from the shiny landing page where a user signed up. There might be a ton of features, lots of tabs, or a new system waiting to be learned. Webflow does a great job of directing eyeballs to specific parts of its dashboard with popup tooltips. These are small, effective ways to grab attention and divulge snippets of information quickly.

What we can learn from Webflow’s onboarding experience: Use visual design cues like tooltips to direct users to important parts of your product. This will help them focus on core features and avoid getting overwhelmed by too much information at once.

8. Wealthfront – Display the benefits of sticking around

It’s incredibly powerful to visualize a before and after, especially for users who might be skeptical about what they can get out of your product. Investment app Wealthfront deals with this through interactive graphs that allow new signups to see what the results of their investments might look like in months and years. There’s no better incentive to stick around than actually seeing how much you can make if you stay, right?

What we can learn from Wealthfront’s onboarding experience: Help first-time users visualize their progress and what outcomes they might be able to achieve if they continue to use your tool. Graphs are a great way to do this, but you might also showcase relevant case studies or implement some kind of calculator.

9. Moosend – Provide a step-by-step guide

Being able to see the next steps can give new users the motivation to continue the onboarding process. Moosend does this through an automated series of emails that take new signups on a journey. Users can see what steps they still need to take at the top of each email and a clear call-to-action (CTA) makes it easy for them to put what they’ve learned into action as soon as possible.

What we can learn from Moosend’s onboarding experience: Reach users where they’re already hanging out—their inboxes. Send a series of step-by-step emails that introduce new signups to different features and how they can get the most of out them ASAP.

10. Trello – Use your tool to help onboard users

There’s no better way to show what your tool is capable of than by letting new users see it in action. Trello’s onboarding process is collated in a Welcome Board that uses—you guessed it—Trello. Users can test out key features in a live example while they learn about the product at the same time.

What we can learn from Trello’s onboarding experience: Show your tool in action by including it in the onboarding process. Give new signups the chance to play around with the features in a live example.

11. Process place – Get users started with templates

Blank page syndrome is real. Process Place avoids putting its new users through this by showcasing a handful of templates they can get started with. Users can browse a library of ready-made templates they can edit and use straight away without figuring out how to use the tool from scratch.

What we can learn from Process Place’s onboarding experience: Provide a collection of templates that not only show users how they can use your tool, but that also allow new signups to get started straight away.

The key components of the best onboarding examples

While the onboarding experiences we’ve mentioned here are all very different in their own ways, there are some crucial elements they all have in common:

• They show users the main benefits of a product and how they can be achieved
• They provide personalized experiences through interactive walkthroughs, detailed signup forms, and “choose your adventure” style guides
• They show new users the main features of a product and how to use them
• They aim to get users started straight away

4 tips to level up your onboarding experience

Your onboarding process is fluid. The needs of your user base will change over time, and it’s important that you listen to their feedback if you want to continue to improve the experience. If your churn rates are through the roof, adoption rates are at rock bottom, and you’re watching new users disappear into the ether, follow these tips.

1. Take stock of user goals

It can be tempting to bombard new users with all the amazing features of your tool, but you should aim to provide the quickest route to value for each user. Consider what their goals are and make sure your onboarding process is aligned with those. For example, if a new user of your project management tool wants to gain transparency across their team, the onboarding process should show them how to do that before it does anything else.

2. Leverage UI tactics

Make use of UI techniques, like tooltips or a modal window to gently guide users through the onboarding process. They can help grab user attention without overwhelming them with too much information.

3. Segment users

Not every user will have the same needs, but there’s a good chance there will be groups of users who have similar goals. Gain insight into your new users, identify patterns, and create onboarding flows for each of the user personas you’ve identified.

4. Test, tweak, and track

No onboarding experience gets it right the first time. Just like your users are learning how to use your product, you’re also learning how they use it. The more clarity you get on challenges, use cases, and goals, the easier it’ll be to create a slick onboarding experience. Continuously test different journeys, tweak steps based on user feedback, and don’t forget to track everything you do to see what works and what doesn’t.

Onboarding FAQs

What is user onboarding?

The user onboarding process welcomes new users to your product and shows them how it works. The goal of an onboarding experience is to showcase the value of your product and what it can achieve for new signups as quickly as possible. This will increase retention rates and long-term loyalty.

Why is user onboarding important?

The user onboarding process is often the first point of contact you have with new users, which means it’s your one chance to make a good first impression. Get it right, and it can lead to increased usage rate, higher retention, and long-term customer satisfaction.

What makes a good user onboarding experience?

A positive onboarding experience should take the individual needs of each new signup into account. It should get them to their “a-ha!” moment as quickly as possible and give them the chance to explore your product at their own pace.

Surprise and delight to improve retention after onboarding

Building a user-centric onboarding experience is only one piece of the puzzle. Once a user is signed up (or subscribed), your job is to discourage cancellation by delivering a seamless experience that continues to surprise and delight.

If you aren’t sure how to do it on your own, get in touch.

We worked with a major media organization, The Telegraph, to reduce same-day cancellations by 30% while improving subscriber quality and increasing acquisition rates.

We’d love to talk to you about how we can help you do the same.

The post 11 Examples of the Best Onboarding Experiences in SaaS to Inspire Your Own appeared first on The Good.

While your team might have the same goal, it’s tough to get everyone on the same page about the best way to approach it. What to do when the team doesn’t agree? Use data and research to back you up! 

To help you out, we’ve put together the ultimate user onboarding guide. It covers:

• What is onboarding?
• Why exactly is onboarding important?
• Where and when do we see onboarding?
• 3 principles of effective onboarding
• UX psychological levers of onboarding

Each section has examples woven throughout so you can see exactly what works, or what doesn’t, for brands and their digital onboarding. Now, let’s get started.

What is onboarding?

As an experienced digital professional, you probably notice how often you’re being ‘onboarded.’ Like us, you likely browse the online or in-app experiences of other brands to see what their user experience is like. 

Onboarding is an action that incorporates a new employee into an organization or familiarizes a new user with a product or service. We’ll be focusing on the second half of the definition, specifically the experience that improves a user’s SUCCESS with the product or service. This is common at the first moments of using a tool, especially with SaaS products and applications.

Here is an example of an onboarding experience from Money Coach, a financial health and well-being app. Pictured below, the tool starts an open dialogue with users during onboarding so that later on they can create a more personalized experience. 

Why exactly onboarding is important?

Ultimately, the goal of user onboarding is to support the bigger business objective of increasing user retention and reducing churn. 

Original Graphic Source

Ideally, the happy path to retention follows along the green line in the flow above. The relationship between customers and products or services remains positive. 

Users see the initial value and that value grows over time and usage. The loyalty that stems from this positive experience then leads to product growth, functionality, and of course, revenue. The churn turning point, however, happens when users don’t initially see the value in a product or service. 

Simply put, great user onboarding flows are the key to keeping your customers from turning down one of the yellow or red lines. Here are a few data points to illustrate the importance of user onboarding. 

How to measure the success of user onboarding

The early indicators of churn are specific from business to business. However, they are translated into onboarding health metrics (measurable actions taken by active users, tied directly to retention).

An online publication like The Washington Post might use leading indicators to measure the “health” of their customer relationships, or whether or not their customers are integrating, or finding value from their services.

In the case of Washington Post, the product team might count actions such as reading articles, logging in, favoriting or sharing an article, downloading an app and subscribing to newsletters as a healthy step toward long-time subscriber retention.

Where and when do we see onboarding?

Sometimes, the best way to understand the range of user onboarding experiences is to take a look at examples, use cases, and activations. So where and when do we usually see onboarding? 

Software as a Service (SaaS) products: Canva

SaaS products typically offer a digital onboarding experience right after signup. For example, here’s the onboarding flow from Canva. 

After signing up for a free account, Canva prompts users into an onboarding sequence focused less on the product features, and more on user needs. This allows the company to deliver custom usage recommendations. 

Apps: Flow

In the first moments post-launch, applications will often offer users the chance to walk through features of their newly downloaded tool.

Flow is a good example of this. After the initial launch of Flow, the app encourages users to review their features and even provides a warm welcoming message directly from the team.

Subscription Products or Services: The Telegraph

After signing up for a subscription, The Telegraph introduces the perks and unique features that the user now has access to. 

When is onboarding relevant in the user journey? 

• Right after sign up: As we saw in examples above, right after sign up the company often shows you features or has you answer some questions to help you personalize your experience.
• Early-stage product use: You can also see onboarding occur once you’re actually beginning to interact with the service or product.
• Email: Onboarding experiences can live outside of the tool or product itself in the form of emails. Emails become an extension of the product and can overview the tool as a welcome message. Emails can either highlight particular functions or new features of the product or simply encourage users to continue engaging with the product
• Deeper into product use: Onboarding can also be present deeper into its product usage, for example after a free trial. This is called gradual engagement and encourages users to explore and use the product and reach an “aha” moment where they see the product value before the company prompts sign up. 

3 principles of effective onboarding

So now that we’ve seen what onboarding experiences are and where we see them, what exactly makes up an effective onboarding experience?

Let’s review three main principles highlighted by Samuel Hulick, a UX expert in user onboarding for nearly a decade. 

Integrated > Distracting

The first principle of a successful user onboarding process is to build an integrated experience that is not distracting. 

Leverage a user’s sense of immersion, momentum, and flow so that they feel an immediate connection to the product while first experiencing it. Try to find ways to integrate timely, relevant guidance for the user versus handing them a “how to use” manual.

Where does Pinterest miss the mark on integrated > distracting? 

Imagine you have just launched into the Pinterest App for the first time and are creating a user profile. All of the sudden, you’re bombarded with requests to send you notifications, access your location, and track your activity. 

Would this onboarding experience feel integrated? No. Is it distracting from the main goal of showing how the app adds value to the user’s life? Yes. 

How is Canva successful in integrated > distracting?

Canva provides onboarding that’s integrated into their main dashboard, allowing users to “choose their own adventure.” The customer can self-direct what they’re looking for and the brand then customizes the onboarding so it’s relevant to the user. This builds trust and value between the user and the product.

Empowering > Controlling

The second principle of effective user onboarding is empowering > controlling. Along the same lines as forming a bond with the product, you want the onboarding experience to offer users an ‘aha’ moment where they understand exactly how the product or service makes their life better.

To do this, make sure to emphasize value and empower users to take action for themselves. Also, congratulate users while they navigate the onboarding, to further build a bond with the product. 

How does this example miss the mark on empowering > controlling? 

As a first-time user, you want to feel like you are working towards a better life when you use the new service or product. You don’t want to feel controlled and trapped in a long product tour that may not even bring you value. 

In the example below, Documents shows a controlling onboarding experience that overloads the user with a long journey that hasn’t been customized to their needs.

Instead, a brand should understand what the user’s motivation and aspirations are behind using the product and guide them towards that outcome. 

To top it off, the Documents features introduction concludes with a prompt encouraging sign up for Documents Plus. An onboarding journey should empower the users to discover the value for themselves, not force them into an upgrade they aren’t ready for yet.

What works about this example from Evernote?

Evernote first captures the user’s motivation behind using the tool and provides them an customer experience relevant to that outcome. They do this without forcing the user down a particular path and share product tips based on what the user wants and not what the brand thinks they want.

Steadfast > Flaky

The third and final principle of effective onboarding is to be steadfast > flaky. Onboarding should extend past the initial usage of the product, adding value to the entire customer lifecycle. 

As we mentioned previously, onboarding can and should occur at different moments in the journey for the user as the relationship between the user and product grows. 

How does LinkedIn miss the mark on steadfast > flaky? 

After a user has been using the social network for some time, LinkedIn prompts an onboarding tour for one of its features LinkedIn Groups. Upon opting into the tour, users are thrown into a  space with no direction or guidance, leaving them to discover on their own. See the screenshot below.  

Unless the user is very curious about what LinkedIn Groups are, they are most likely going to abandon this because the product isn’t offering value in the tour and is putting all of the work onto the user. 

What does Canva do right? 

On the other hand, Canva uses quick tool tips and coach marks, pictured below, as users discover new functionalities and features of the app. It gives users continued tutorials, at their own self-directed pace. 

UX psychological levers of onboarding (with user onboarding examples)

Beyond understanding some of the key principles to effective onboarding, we can create a deeper connection with the customer and build a better onboarding experience by learning how to meet their psychological needs. 

Front-loaded user value

If a user sees how a product or service offers a path to a better version of themselves, they will work to integrate it into their lives. Simply make a good first impression.

Again, you want your users to have that “aha” moment as soon as possible where they come to an understanding that the product will be beneficial to their life. You can pave that road for them and set them on track by front-loading user value. 

Success Breeds Success

When you feel accomplished or successful, you’re inclined to continue succeeding. This is similar to basketball players who gain confidence as they continue scoring points (hot streak) or that feeling of when you have a task list of chores to do and you begin crossing them off one by one. Momentum is something that is built and will carry users to want to keep moving forward. 

Quick Wins

Quick wins allow users to create that initial momentum and keep sustaining it throughout the journey as long as it’s presented to users. Quick wins should be steps that users can complete that ask too much from the user while also focusing on the value where each step brings them closer to actualizing that “better version” of themselves. 

Netflix does a great job providing value upfront and capitalizing on it at every step of the onboard journey on the way to an aha moment.

A simple email input kickstarts the onboarding and users are then led into a simple 3 step process. Each step reminds users why input is needed and how it’s going to provide them value later on.

When the choose your plan step arrives, users are reminded about the no-commitment trial and are clearly shown the advantages of each plan.

The final step links the user’s payment, and again Netflix reinforces its no strings attached trial. Additionally, they let the user know that this is the last step — it was that easy!

As soon as you’re done with the 3 step sign-up, Netflix teases that big streaming moment by asking users their preferences. This creates custom, initial recommendations and shows the value of Netflix in a product experience of under a minute. 

Permission Priming

Preparing, or priming, a user before you ask permission to access their OS system makes it more likely that they’ll comply with your request. This is vitally important because your product might not be able to provide value to the user without access.

Scan & Translate is a great example of permission priming in action. It reminds users that in order to use the scan features and gain value from the app, they need to grant camera permissions to the system.

Success States

Success states are the opposite of “error” states. You let users know that their actions are working. This goes beyond celebrating milestones. Guiding users through a complicated flow of actions should be seen as a continuous conversation between the user and product – and that includes telling them when they’re doing something right. 

A success state can serve multiple purposes depending on the timing, placement, and design of the success state but picking the right moments to interject a success state can effectively keep users on the onboarding journey. 

Success States: Confirmation

This type of success state provides validation and assurance to the user that they’re taking the right steps. Inline validation is a common success state for confirmation. 

Here’s a real life brand example. DocuSign provides a success state that confirms with users that they’ve already put themselves on a path to success and presents to them a roadmap of what is left for them. This gives them initial momentum and also assurance and clarity. 

Success States: Context

This success state provides context to the user about where they are in the journey. 

This is like digital signposts or wayfinding. If you are a driver navigating a new area, you generally want to find signs that indicate you’re on the right road, especially in an unfamiliar place. This same is true for good onboarding in products. You want to let users know where they are in the onboarding process and provide a clear next step. Do this with a progress bar, numbering, step-by-step, etc.

Here’s a good example. Stash shows a contextual success state that also includes permission priming and encouragement. After collecting your interests, the app leads users to a congratulations screen, letting them know they’re about to begin using the app. At the bottom, they also subtly prime notification access from the user.

Success States: Encouragement

People love the feeling of genuine encouragement, especially after a big feat or accomplishment. User needs are the same, and encouragement is a success state that helps your users get closer to their ‘aha moment.’

Here’s an example from Asana. The platform actually celebrates the user with a fun graphic when they accomplish a meaningful step in the onboarding journey – completing a task! 

Build a better user onboarding experience with The Good

If you’re struggling with churn, I highly recommend you take a look at the user onboarding experience of your site, service, or app. With a bit of research, some tests, and optimizations, you can be back on the path to success.

At The Good, we can help guide you through the optimization process of your user onboarding experience so that you can turn more visitors into buyers or subscribers. Our services page has more information, but don’t hesitate to reach out, we’re here to help! 

The post User Onboarding: Building A Digital Experience That Converts & Retains [With Examples] appeared first on The Good.