How heavily do you rely on onboarding?

Question

Hello everyone! 
Currently, we're working on an onboarding process research, and we’re in need of more opinions 🙌🏻

When implementing a new tool in your workflow, how heavily do you rely on onboarding provided within the tool itself? (Meaning: popup messages, emails, dedicated videos, etc.)

Ksusha · Accepted Answer

Most of the time it annoys me

When i use new tool, i always want it to be easy in use and understandable. and when i see popup messages, i skip them🤔

Andrey Lipkovskiy · Answer

I don't believe in onboarding. Whatever you're trying to solve, can be done with better user experience.

Lucile Rivière · Answer

We do believe a lot in onboardings at Plezi. So far we mix it within & outside the tool. 
- Inside the tool: we implemented a post signup experience to make user understands the value & perform the key tasks to make them feel at home + a checklist in the app to perform the first actions that we lead them to the first "aha moments" 
Pros => no popups, real inclusive experience 
Cons => relies on the tech team that is already busy coding new features ;)

- Outside the tool: we use intercom series to trigger in-app & email messages to users. For instance, there is ONE key action users need to do to start getting value - for that we created a serie to 1. remind them of doing this 2. remind them again with a different approach 3. to ask them why they didn't do it - which is useful for user research. 
Pros => the product & CS team is super autonomous, can A/B test messages & formats and follow results without asking anything to the tech team 
Cons => more intrusive & less "inclusive" in the overall app experience

Michael Bogdanowicz · Answer

Well it is complicated question. But I think the best onboarding to make some task at the start with tips inside interface, not like popup messages.

Sofia · Answer

@ksusha_golovchenko Yeah, I agree, the more intuitive the interface - the better :) But what if you  run into some problems? Would you prefer a text to read or a video to watch?

Sofia · Answer

@mikhail_bogdanovich Thank you for your answer, Michael! I agree with you on this one but personally tend to skip even these tasks if there's an option :)

Sofia · Answer

@lipkovskiy Thank you for your answer, Andrey! Of course, the more intuitive the product, the less there is the need for any kind of an onboarding.

Sofia · Answer

@jreynoldsdev Thank you for sharing your experience, Jake! I usually tend to skip any kind of onboarding info myself but sometimes struggle with more advanced features. So, follow-up emails sound like a great solution :)

Jake Reynolds · Answer

When I was a PM, I found myself paying more attention to other products' onboarding process because I knew how hard I worked on ours. But I'm finding myself skipping them again whenever given the option.

I have liked follow-up emails after I interact with functionality, providing more information about those features. Feels far less intrusive.

Ksusha · Answer

@sonya_key_ it depends

i prefer to read while using a tool. but if i wanna delve into the mechanics of the product, id watch a video on youtube :)

Ebba Cronqvist · Answer

@ksusha_golovchenko I agree with you, I always click to skip. But when I've observed some of our users, to improve our own onboarding, many asked for tool tips/ product tours as our product lacked it.

@sonya_key_  I asked if they use it in other products and it seems like many were mostly missing it in our tool because they were "used to seeing it those when testing new products". I think people expect it, as if it made them feel safe that there's for sure a backup guide if they get lost.

Aleks Dahlberg · Answer

We try to make everything self-service, and as a company with an API as its main product this is difficult. But in order to make it simple we focus heavily on "developer love" which comes in the form of easy to access support and beautiful documentation

Sofia · Answer

@mituhin Thank you for your answer, Paul! I agree, usually I don't really have enough patience to read or watch long walkthroughs and skip them anyways :) Short video or/and (if I can't really watch a video atm) short step-by-step readable guide would work best for me.

Paul Mit · Answer

I'm not much of a fan of the usual product tours or long descriptions of "how it should work."

The best way is to watch a short video. Cool example of onboarding is a 'sandbox', which is a project where everything is set up and you can poke around in the details. Demo projects work great for me, too.

Paul Mit · Answer

@sonya_key_ yeah, absolutely

How heavily do you rely on onboarding?

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