These teardowns are great -- thanks to the author for doing them. Onboarding is so important to breaking the ice with users, and providing with a clear sense o

These teardowns are great -- thanks to the author for doing them. Onboarding is so important to breaking the ice with users, and providing with a clear sense of what to do after they register. They got sold about some value proposition before they registered, and chances are they probably need to do some work before they start seeing that value: adding friends, installing a client, setting preferences, etc. Users need their hand held in those first few screens. It's easy to get tunnel vision about a product when you've been building a product for weeks, and obvious steps don't seem so obvious to fresh eyes. Asking strangers to sit down and complete tasks while you watch is one of the best learning experiences you can have about your own product. I learned the hard way a few times when I got registrations and no repeat visits. I was able to cut it significantly by guiding users on what to do next (I took some lessons from Twitter's onboarding), and following up via auto email if they still didn't get started. Copy made a big difference, too.