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Here are our stats for Polar.... Before onboarding our cohort retention was 2%...after 1 week. This means that after a week only 2% of our users came back to

Here are our stats for Polar.... Before onboarding our cohort retention was 2%...after 1 week. This means that after a week only 2% of our users came back to use the app. After a basic onboarding we jumped to 10%. We're now at about 14-15% (just via improving the app). About 50% of our users completely skip the onboarding altogether. I think I'm going to experiment with a video instead of a tour to see the difference.

dlanouette 8y ago
> About 50% of our users completely skip the onboarding altogether. How is this different than when you had no onboarding? (serious question) Did you make other changes that made the onboarding process less important to end users?
- virgilp 8y ago
  The glass is half full, not half empty. About 50% of users DON'T skip onboarding - and for those users, it really matters.
- ivanhoe 8y ago
  You separate people in those willing to explore and figure it out on their own, and those who'd otherwise probably never check further than the home page on their own. In my experience the biggest gain from intros is that when you get people into entering some basic data - creating an example project or something - they feel like they've already invested some time and are much more willing to explore the features further and enter more data and eventually really start using the app.
rfwhyte 8y ago
This is why I have a certain distaste for articles like this. The author has this sort hypothesis / contention, specifically that user onboarding is a waste of time, yet presents no data to either validate or disprove their hypothesis. We're supposed to just accept their hot take as gospel, where as folks like yourself can offer actual data that serves as a compelling counterpoint.
- DanHulton 8y ago
  I dunno that it's a counterpoint. The thesis of the article is that setting up a user onboarding flow before you're ready is a waste of time, and/or that it's not as useful an activity as others you could be doing with that same time. I'd consider Polar a success of "adding onboarding when ready." I just don't want people to consider onboarding as the first and only tool to reach for when trying to fix your Trial-to-Paid Conversion issues. There are a lot of other useful tasks you could - and frequently should - be working on as well.
tomc1985 8y ago
God I hate user onboarding... seeing stats like that make me so sad, and feel ever further away from the current internet zeitgeist.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 8y ago
  Half of their users skip the on-boarding. Why would that make you feel far away from the current internet zeitgeist? Presumably the user group you've self selected into also has a retention rate that is 20x lower than those that don't skip the on-boarding.
  - tomc1985 8y ago
    Because everything has onboarding now. Sometimes it's unskippable (think mobile games). It's always annoying, very frequently patronizing, and, frankly most people's app/site designs aren't that special because modern UX seems to have no more than a handful of designs for how tech is to be spoonfed to the masses. Of course none of that matters because it makes another tiny, self-selected group considerably more money.
elliotec 8y ago
This is really interesting, because Polar is the first onboarding experience I've had in a really long time that made sense and wasn't extremely annoying.
Bedon292 8y ago
What is the retention of people who do vs don't skip the onboarding? Is it a wide disparity?
artur_makly 8y ago
can anyone else share some A/B stats?

dlanouette 8y ago

> About 50% of our users completely skip the onboarding altogether. How is this different than when you had no onboarding? (serious question) Did you make other changes that made the onboarding process less important to end users?

virgilp 8y ago
The glass is half full, not half empty. About 50% of users DON'T skip onboarding - and for those users, it really matters.
ivanhoe 8y ago
You separate people in those willing to explore and figure it out on their own, and those who'd otherwise probably never check further than the home page on their own. In my experience the biggest gain from intros is that when you get people into entering some basic data - creating an example project or something - they feel like they've already invested some time and are much more willing to explore the features further and enter more data and eventually really start using the app.

rfwhyte 8y ago

This is why I have a certain distaste for articles like this. The author has this sort hypothesis / contention, specifically that user onboarding is a waste of time, yet presents no data to either validate or disprove their hypothesis. We're supposed to just accept their hot take as gospel, where as folks like yourself can offer actual data that serves as a compelling counterpoint.

DanHulton 8y ago
I dunno that it's a counterpoint. The thesis of the article is that setting up a user onboarding flow before you're ready is a waste of time, and/or that it's not as useful an activity as others you could be doing with that same time. I'd consider Polar a success of "adding onboarding when ready." I just don't want people to consider onboarding as the first and only tool to reach for when trying to fix your Trial-to-Paid Conversion issues. There are a lot of other useful tasks you could - and frequently should - be working on as well.

tomc1985 8y ago

God I hate user onboarding... seeing stats like that make me so sad, and feel ever further away from the current internet zeitgeist.

X6S1x6Okd1st 8y ago
Half of their users skip the on-boarding. Why would that make you feel far away from the current internet zeitgeist? Presumably the user group you've self selected into also has a retention rate that is 20x lower than those that don't skip the on-boarding.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  Because everything has onboarding now. Sometimes it's unskippable (think mobile games). It's always annoying, very frequently patronizing, and, frankly most people's app/site designs aren't that special because modern UX seems to have no more than a handful of designs for how tech is to be spoonfed to the masses. Of course none of that matters because it makes another tiny, self-selected group considerably more money.

elliotec 8y ago

This is really interesting, because Polar is the first onboarding experience I've had in a really long time that made sense and wasn't extremely annoying.

Bedon292 8y ago

What is the retention of people who do vs don't skip the onboarding? Is it a wide disparity?

artur_makly 8y ago

can anyone else share some A/B stats?