When they first sign up, new users aren’t committed to your product. They’re just getting started. A strong first use experience must persuade these new and sceptical clients that your solution will genuinely improve their lives. It’s hardly unexpected that onboarding flows that focus on displaying all of a product’s capabilities become leaky buckets as new customers lose interest.

The solution is to design your onboarding experience around user value and guide new customers to a “aha” moment rather than a tour of product features. Here’s how to go about it.

Step 1: Determine the function for which new users will hire your product.

Great onboarding begins with a thorough understanding of why customers purchase your product. We utilise the Job-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework at Intercom to understand the value our consumers expect from a product. JTBD emphasises how people purchase a product to solve an issue rather than for the product itself.

For example, when customers purchase a Snickers bar, they expect the chocolate bar to satisfy their hunger and energise them through the day. This is apart from other chocolate bars, which provide escapism and enjoyment. A good first-time Snickers experience would provide the buyer with a sense of vitality and fullness.
These motivations for customers to purchase your product should serve as the foundation for your new user onboarding experience.
A Snickers bar’s job is to provide energy and sustenance, hence the motto “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry.”

Your product may serve different functions in different market segments. Each of these jobs should have its own onboarding process. Box handles this problem by asking new users what they intend to use the platform for and then personalising onboarding to that purpose. Box employs a basic chooser to allow customers to customise their onboarding experience.
For complex products (like as business software), you’ll also need to determine the many roles that the various stakeholders want to do: sales may be concerned with acquiring more leads, but marketing is concerned with providing an experience that is consistent with their brand.

Step 2: Identify the features that enable users to do the task at hand.

Once you’ve discovered the duties your new user desires, the following step is to determine the features in your product that fulfil those requirements. These are the aspects that new customers must encounter in order to fully appreciate the benefits of your product, and they should be the focus of your first use experience. It is critical to demonstrate to clients how to locate and use each function.

Step 3: Eliminate any non-essential steps and look for shortcuts to value.

Once you’ve determined what value looks like, the next step is to determine the shortest path to bringing in new users.
Do everything you can to reduce obstacles to new users experiencing important features that deliver value.
This minimal viable onboarding procedure will differ depending on the client segment and use case, therefore make sure to tailor onboarding to each segment.
Using templates and presumptuous defaults to remove configuration and set up procedures is a standard technique to accomplish this.
If your product necessitates lengthy or complicated installation or configuration tasks, look for alternate ways to demonstrate its value.
Even little ‘aha’ moments encourage novice users to stick with the process.

As a shortcut to demonstrate value and motivate new customers through the long and complex application process, Progressive, an insurance business, predicts how much a new customer might save.

Step 4: Design your first usage experience on the value that users expect to see.

The flow, language, and graphic design should all explain how the job a new user is being asked to accomplish connects to the value that they hope to receive as they progress through onboarding. When you design your first-use experience on value, your onboarding flow will be built on features to accomplish that task, rather than just screens of your product.

By framing onboarding chores around value, you may motivate yourself to get over the friction of filling out forms and selecting setup settings.

Uber’s driver sign-up flow incentivizes potential drivers with holiday rush pricing.

Excellent onboarding results in active, satisfied users.
Onboarding’s purpose is to put prospective users on the path to become happy, loyal clients. The first stage in this trip is to persuade prospective users that your product will benefit them. A first use experience centred on the value your product delivers demonstrates to new clients how your product benefits them and motivates them to complete the process. This requires more effort than the standard tour through the settings screen, but your clients will appreciate it.