Krystal Higgins

UX and interaction designer Krystal Higgins takes us through the dos and don’ts of designing an effective onboarding experience for new users that will go a long way to helping ensure your service provides value beyond the first run

- Oliver Lindberg

One thread Krystal Higgins has carried through all of her roles – at NVIDIA, eBay and currently Google – is a passion for user onboarding, which she defines as “the scaffolding that leads people from a nascent state into being successful, more committed and loyal to your product”. It helps users, who companies tend to spend a lot of time and money acquiring, get through the initial stages of using a product.

It’s important to note, however, that it’s not just about the first-time use. Onboarding isn’t just a single event in the users’ experience; it can also set them up for success in the long term, thus leading to better retention. “If you’re more concerned about engagement metrics, onboarding can encourage users to engage more frequently with your product,” Higgins explains. “If your product is a content creation platform and you have defined successful users as people who contribute – not just consume – content, then the process of onboarding can help you guide them in such a way that they can see how to create content.”

The goal is to educate users but also to point them to the next steps, re-engage them if they’ve lapsed and introduce them to new features and capabilities.

First impressions are critical. Depending on the product, how much time you have to draw somebody in can range from a few seconds up to a week. “On websites there’s less time in which to capture a person’s attention because it’s pretty easy for them to flip out and go to another site or backtrack through the browser to their search results and find another product that fits their needs,” Higgins says. “With apps it can be different, as people make an explicit decision to download and open an app. Some research on the retention rates of Android app users (