A video was recommended for me to watch about onboarding – Video
What I learned:
Onboarding is very important and it needs to be done right. It should easily explain to users what features are present and what they can do with it. People should know what to do with the product that you have designed
Five Fundamentals
- Prioritise important features – not all features are created equal, choose which are important and the user needs to see. Minimal does not equal usable, a minimal app can cause the important features to be hidden and hard to find for the user but at the same time a app should not be overloaded with tabs and menus as it can over complicate the app and make it a lot harder for users to use. Prioritise important features and make them discoverable and easily used
- Provide visual cues – You need to know your audience so that you know what has to be spelled out and what can be inferred. Ask yourself “Will they know what this icon will mean?”. If there is something that can be confused you should add a label to clarify it for users
- Hint at gestures – use gestures that people are familiar with such as pinch to zoom or double tap to like. Use gestures as a shortcut not a replacement for things, there should still be a primary way of preforming all of these actions
- Organize by behaviour – Organize content into categories that translate peoples behaviour and real life context. Visually reinforce these categories by having clear divisions. Use personalisation so people can more easily find what they like
- Convey a sense of control – allow people the option to provide feedback. Give control over recommendations for example, because you liked this or because you watched this. This all gives the user a sense of control and that they have the power
Onboarding needs to be simple and quick because no one wants to read the long paragraphs of text that is between you and the app or website that you want to use.
I realised that onboarding is very important and there is a lot of elements that needs to be thought about in relation to it, onboarding may be the first thing a user sees from your website or app so it is important for it to make a good impression as it may be the reason someone leaves or stays on your app or website.
I learned a lot about onboarding during this video and it gave me a lot of tips and advice that I can add to my onboarding page.