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Onboarding teardowns
- mkaroumi 11y agoProbably my favorite site ever made (after Hacker News) haha. The only thing I hate is that they are too slow to make new onboarding teardowns! My favorite - how they criticize Apple Music's onboarding process: https://www.useronboard.com/how-applemusic-onboards-new-users/ https://www.useronboard.com/how-applemusic-onboards-new-user...
- samuelhulick 11y agoThat is rad, rad, rad to hear. It totally made my day.
- johansch 11y agoApple Music - yeah, and they/he/she didn't even't get to actually start using that weird app.
- fisherjeff 11y agoGreat site. Love that it's more than simple, glancing criticism and actually offers suggestions for improvements. Well done.
- samuelhulick 11y agoThanks, I try!
- alistairSH 11y agoCouldn't agree more. Forwarded it along to my team at work; I'm sure the designers will enjoy some of the most "painful" on-boarding experiences.
- samuelhulick 11y agoThank you for spreading the word!
- samuelhulick 11y ago@dv_says Thank you so much for sharing this!
- samuelhulick 11y agoHi all! I'm the person behind this site -- if any of you have any questions or withering critiques, send 'em here! I will be watching it all day.
- patrickfl 11y agoOne of my favorite blogs without a doubt, been reading your onboards since the beginning.
- samuelhulick 11y agoGood lookin' out, homie!
- ameyamk 11y agoIt would be nice to list tear downs in the order in which they were reviewed - so I can read new ones quickly when I visit. Looks like current list is alphabetically sorted.
- samuelhulick 11y agoAh, good call! I will def add that to the list.
- tomlongson 11y agoSome kind of datatable showing key observable metrics would be great.
- samuelhulick 11y agoHmm, any suggestions on what those metrics would be?
- baronseng 11y agomost viewed, most likes and newly added will be awesome.
- hannahwright 11y agoThis is easily one of my favorite sites. Every startup should check out (and learn from) these onboarding teardowns — they're awesome.
- samuelhulick 11y agoHigh five, Hannah!
- dv_says 11y agoI'm assuming the big name products here have carefully measured, A/B tested, etc. every screen and they are at their best (other than Apple Music, which is a whole other creature). That said, product teams should still periodically audit onboarding content, ideally with a set of fresh eyes. Does everything still make sense? Is there a logical flow from A to B? It would have been interesting to be "a fly on the wall" and see how some of these evolved over time. I suspect some of the oddities initially started with a good set of screens, but then a new piece was later tacked on without a full audit or without the resources to change everything else.
- samuelhulick 11y agoYes, totally agreed. I would love to see how these flows are performing from a conversion/retention standpoint, in particular the more... perplexing parts.
- teddyh 11y agoI was surprised to not see Facebook in the list. Or that not a “web app” in peoples’s minds?
- samuelhulick 11y agoOh, it definitely is. I just haven't gotten to it yet. Slingshot was a Facebook product, though: http://www.useronboard.com/how-slingshot-onboards-new-users/ http://www.useronboard.com/how-slingshot-onboards-new-users/
- xixixao 11y agoLove it, your site could work better on mobile though, especially making sure those navigation buttons are big enough to hit.
- samuelhulick 11y agoYeah, totally true. It's high on the list for the design overhaul!
- Animats 11y agoI notice how most of those "onboardings" don't even suggest you read the EULA. That's scary. There are a lot of EULAs out there to which you really don't want to agree.
- samuelhulick 11y agoYeah I am definitely not going to pore over thousands of words in an intentionally-obtuse legal document just to check out Periscope or whatever.
- bcook 11y agoI had no idea what "onboarding" was until I clicked the link. I feel incredibly enlightened now. GUIs are so important, but it seems like properly designing a clean and straight-forward GUI is almost a cult movement rather than a mainstream movement.
- samuelhulick 11y agoWelcome to the party, friend!
- username223 11y agoI thought Quora's onboarding was: (1) question mark share equals one; (2) close tab; (3) hover over the link and don't click. I didn't even know these screens existed.
- reubenswartz 11y agoLove this site. It's amazing how many steps users have to go through to start using even simple apps. (It actually made me feel better about my app-- not that the on boarding is perfect, just nice to realize that I'm not alone.) Sam-- any thoughts on how many screens someone should have to go through, or tips for reducing that number? Or, if perhaps sometimes it's better to do something in multiple screens that many of us developer types would group onto one screen (Slack comes to mind here)? Thanks for your contributions to making software easier to use.
- samuelhulick 11y agoAgh, I hate to give you a glib answer here, but I'd have to say "as many screens as it takes to reliably progress people forward." I tend to think less in terms of screens and more in user momentum -- how quickly and substantially are they making progress in what they set out to do when they signed up?
- joenathan 11y agoNetflix is an example of a trend that I hate, where it is hard to find the sign in button. One other offender that comes to mind is Crashplan, I actually had to google "Crashplan login" to find the page. Lastpass does this too where you actually have to cancel toward the end of the installation to proceed because the installer assumes you are a new user. Maybe not directly related but when you go to download Chrome from chrome.com it forces you to watch an animation first, very unnecessary and frustrating. Onboarding should take existing users into consideration and let them easily log right in.
- samuelhulick 11y agoAgreed!
- dawie 11y agoDoes this site get you quite a few consulting clients, or is it more word of mouth?
- samuelhulick 11y agoI'm not sure I follow -- what's the difference between the two, specifically?
- dawie 11y agoDo you get clients directly from your site? Or do most of your clients come from referrals or recurring work from existing clients?
- wink 11y agoI found the Ashley Madison one quite fun to read :)
- dawie 11y agoWhat software do you use to create your teardowns with?