
Onboarding teardowns - dv_says
https://www.useronboard.com/onboarding-teardowns/
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samuelhulick
Hi 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.

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wingerlang
I think this [http://i.imgur.com/bgAJfwI.png](http://i.imgur.com/bgAJfwI.png)
is not something us iOS developers have any control over. It is a message that
automatically will pop up upon starting the app, as opposed to the location
message when we are asking for the location. (This one is saying the app might
use it in the background).

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notatoad
I think the best practice there is to "prime" the user before they see the iOS
permission prompts. Something like "your phone will now ask for permission to
access your location. We need this to do x,y,z.."

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wingerlang
Sure, but my point is that for this very specific one (app may use location in
the background) we are unable to do the priming as this one will be displayed
by the app automatically (as opposed to most/all other such popups).

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notatoad
Right, that makes sense. Wasn't thinking about the consequences of it being
the background location prompt specifically

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mkaroumi
Probably 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-
user...](https://www.useronboard.com/how-applemusic-onboards-new-users/)

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samuelhulick
That is rad, rad, rad to hear. It totally made my day.

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joenathan
Netflix 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.

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samuelhulick
Agreed!

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hannahwright
This is easily one of my favorite sites.

Every startup should check out (and learn from) these onboarding teardowns —
they're awesome.

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samuelhulick
High five, Hannah!

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reubenswartz
Love 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.

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samuelhulick
Agh, 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?

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Animats
I 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.

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samuelhulick
Yeah I am definitely not going to pore over thousands of words in an
intentionally-obtuse legal document just to check out Periscope or whatever.

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bcook
I 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.

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samuelhulick
Welcome to the party, friend!

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dv_says
I'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.

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samuelhulick
Yes, totally agreed. I would love to see how these flows are performing from a
conversion/retention standpoint, in particular the more... perplexing parts.

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fisherjeff
Great site. Love that it's more than simple, glancing criticism and actually
offers suggestions for improvements. Well done.

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alistairSH
Couldn'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.

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samuelhulick
Thank you for spreading the word!

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xixixao
Love it, your site could work better on mobile though, especially making sure
those navigation buttons are big enough to hit.

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samuelhulick
Yeah, totally true. It's high on the list for the design overhaul!

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samuelhulick
@dv_says Thank you so much for sharing this!

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username223
I 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.

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teddyh
I was surprised to not see Facebook in the list. Or that not a “web app” in
peoples’s minds?

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samuelhulick
Oh, 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/)

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dawie
Does this site get you quite a few consulting clients, or is it more word of
mouth?

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samuelhulick
I'm not sure I follow -- what's the difference between the two, specifically?

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dawie
Do you get clients directly from your site?

Or do most of your clients come from referrals or recurring work from existing
clients?

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dawie
What software do you use to create your teardowns with?

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wink
I found the Ashley Madison one quite fun to read :)

