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On average, apps lose 77% of users within 3 days. And it's not because they lack features or because they have bad marketing. It's because of their onboarding. And the crazy thing is, it's really easy to fix. So, in this video,
Learn 5 onboarding tricks backed by psychology to boost app user retention and engagement quickly and effectively.
Key Takeaways
- Effective onboarding is crucial to retain users beyond the first few days.
- Deliver immediate value to users to create a strong first impression and increase retention.
- Simplify onboarding steps and make them feel achievable to encourage completion.
- Interactive onboarding helps users learn by doing, which improves engagement.
- Personalization and progress feedback enhance user motivation and product attachment.
What the video covers
- Apps lose 77% of users within 3 days mainly due to poor onboarding, not features or marketing.
- Showcase the app's core benefit immediately to create an early Eureka moment that hooks users.
- Simplify onboarding by breaking it into achievable steps to leverage the Zeigarnik effect and reduce user drop-off.
- Encourage active user interaction during onboarding to enhance learning and retention through trial and error.
- Personalize onboarding to increase user trust and engagement using the familiarity principle.
- Use visual progress indicators like progress bars to motivate users and build momentum during onboarding.
- Avoid overwhelming users with too many steps upfront to prevent early abandonment.
- Examples include Breathwork, Stomper, Sudoku app, Speechify, Marathon, and Typeform illustrating these principles.
- Psychological principles such as the Eureka effect, Zeigarnik effect, trial and error learning, familiarity principle, peak-end rule, and goal gradient effect are key to effective onboarding.
- Free design strategy calls are offered to help companies implement these onboarding improvements.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction: The onboarding problem and its impact
- 00:36Creating an instant Eureka moment with core value
- 01:33Simplifying onboarding steps using the Zeigarnik effect
- 04:05Encouraging learning by doing with interactive onboarding
- 05:45Personalizing onboarding to build user trust
- 07:05Using progress indicators to motivate users
- 08:02Avoiding overwhelming users with too many steps
- 08:50Conclusion and call to action for design strategy calls
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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I'm going to show you five onboarding tricks used by world-class apps to instantly hook new users and keep them coming back. All examples on the list are backed by psychological principles and my own observations from designing for fast-moving tech companies for the
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last decade. Now, let's kick it off. You know those sample booths at grocery stores? You're planning on buying keto ginger organic miso soup, but one spoonful in and it's instant clarity. No pitch, no hard sell, the product speaks
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for itself. That's exactly what great onboarding should do. But most apps start with friction, account creation, settings, walkthroughs. They make people put in a bunch of work before they get any reward. But Breathwork flips that.
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As part of the onboarding, users are guided into an actual breathing session. No setup, no fuss, just an immediate moment of calm. And it's not just a UX choice here. It's psychology.
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This works so well because of the Eureka effect, the flash of understanding when something just clicks. You see, when users experience the product's value within the first 60 seconds, retention goes up significantly. So surface your core benefit upfront. Let them feel the
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difference early because if you've built something worthwhile, one taste of that soup is going to be enough. Quick note, if you like some free advice for how to surface that early Eureka moment in your products, at SIPAP, we offer a few
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design strategy calls with companies every single month. Links down below if you want to grab one before they fill up. Now, a fast win is just the beginning because next we need to talk about why doing less is often the
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smartest strategy in onboarding. And if you've ever built IKEA furniture, you'll get this. There's a reason the instructions walk you through one step at a time. If you saw all the 12 pages up front, chances are you'd throw that
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forsaken Allen key into the package and just give up. Because the deal here is multi-step tasks are only finishable if they feel finishable. This is rooted in the Zeigarnik effect which shows that people are more likely to complete
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something once it's begun if the next steps feel achievable. That's why Stomper's onboarding flow is so effective. They welcome first-time users with just three beautiful steps after you've already entered the app. No input fields, no heavy lifting, just quickly
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explaining the essentials of the app. You see, sometimes onboarding isn't about doing, it's about preparing the user smoothly. If users walk away thinking, "Yeah, I can do this," then you've done your job very well. However, some products have more than three
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crucial steps that they want to show a user during onboarding. And we'll get back to how you handle those cases later in the video. But first, let's move to the next key part. Because now that users feel confident, we need to give
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them actions that build memory. When you learned to ride a bike, your parents didn't hand you an instruction manual.
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That would be very absurd. They just put you on the dang thing, gave you a shove, and off you went. You understood what to do by doing. The Sudoku app takes this same exact approach. Instead of teaching you rules, it just gives you your first
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puzzle with guided hints. You interact with it and before you know it, you've already learned how to use the app. This leverages the trial and error learning principle. As humans, we internalize lessons faster and more deeply when we're actively engaging, not just
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passively consuming. By giving users meaningful micro-interactions during onboarding, we reduce bounce rates and increase information retention.
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Therefore, in cases where an app's key flow is simple enough, it's a good idea to let users actually interact with it during the onboarding because action turns into understanding. Now, if you're not sure what would be the best fit for
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your product, again, we're happy to give you some pointers for free. Just sign up for the design strategy call in the link down below. So, interaction is great, but it only really sticks once users feel like your product actually belongs
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to them. Let me explain real quick. You know, when you sit down in a new car and you just instinctively adjust the seats and the mirrors, you make these small little tweaks that make the space feel more safe, more comfortable, and more
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yours ultimately. That's what personalization does during onboarding. And a great example of this in the wild is how Speechify guides new users to set up their reading environments immediately. From the start, they walk you through voice tone, highlight
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preference, and listening speed. Instead of flashing features on the screen, it asks you what works for you. And this activates something called the familiarity principle. A psychological principle that tells us people are more likely to trust and engage with products
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that feel personalized, even if only slightly. So give users control. The faster your product feels like theirs, the longer they'll stick around and grow to love your product. Now you've shown your value. You've simplified the path, encouraged interaction, and you made it
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personal. But there's one more thing, and this is where you can either reinforce that good, amazing momentum, or just kill it completely. Anyone who's filled out a government form knows this pain. 1,000 input fields and no sign of
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when it ends. Now, think of what happens when you see that step two out of five.
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You're instantly relieved, and it's much more likely that you'll actually keep going. That's why visual progress cues like progress bars, numbered steps, checklists, etc. are super powerful.
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They deliver motivation in bite-sized doses for a user. And a great example here is Marathon, a social TV watching app. They show a simple top progress bar during onboarding. Not flashy at all, but enough to keep you motivated because
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this draws from two psychological principles. One, the peak-end rule, and two, the goal gradient effect. We're wired to push harder when we know how close we are to the finish. So, all you need to do is show just enough progress
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to build momentum. But be warned, if you have multiple key steps that you need to highlight in your app, you don't necessarily want to reveal the number of steps in this case. Because if someone sees 12 steps before they've even felt a
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single hit of value, they're gone. Their brain will just think, geez, this is a lot of effort. And they'll bounce.
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That's why Typeform, for example, doesn't highlight steps as a default in their long form templates. Anyways, if you like this quick tip video, I'm sure you'll gain a lot of value from this video here somewhere. And if you still
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haven't checked if there are any spots left for the design strategy calls, now's your time to go there, grab a free review of your product or your website.
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Other than that, until the next one, have a great!
Topics:app onboardinguser retentionapp growthpsychological principlesuser engagementEureka effectZeigarnik effecttrial and error learningpersonalizationprogress indicators
