Planny is a daily planner productivity app featuring task organizing and an automated scheduler etc. I looked at the onboarding flow to see how easy it was to get started, and when I found it off-putting, made copy revisions as a personal project. Go to revised copy mockups.

Challenges

• Planny’s onboarding is long, fairly complicated, and has a somewhat bossy tone.
• Sometimes feature highlights and advice on how to be productive are merged, and the result is that a new user might not understand what Planny can offer, and could feel intimidated by the requirement to commit to being organized. This is especially true for a user who is looking for help to be more organized and productive, and who needs to be reassured that the app can meet them where they are. Ultimately, an off-putting onboarding process could translate into low app retention.
• Onboarding is the first chance to show a product off. Because there are so many similar task management apps,  I would also have liked to talk to the developer about what Planny’s USP is, and think about how to incorporate that perspective more strongly into the onboarding.

Competitor analysis

I looked at other competitor apps to see how they approached onboarding.

My solutions

• I simplified the descriptions, and put more of an emphasis on how the app could help users instead of telling them what they need to do.
• The app features ‘awards’ which are given to the user who completes tasks. There is no reference at all to this gamification in the onboarding. I would have liked to explore with the Product Manager whether this potentially appealing app feature could be incorporated into the onboarding.

Measures of success

Because the purpose of onboarding is to encourage the user to start using the features and then carry on using the app, I would determine success by measuring:

• The percentage of users who click through all the onboarding screens before and after the changes are implemented; a rise reflects that the screens were short enough and useful enough to motivate a user to complete them.
• The percentage of users who add their first task before and after the changes are implemented; a rise reflects that the onboarding motivates the user to actively engage with the app at least at a basic level.
• The number of Planny’s ‘awards’ given to users before and after the changes are implemented; a rise reflects that the onboarding motivates the user to actively engage with the app at a higher level.
• The percentage of users who continue to add at least three tasks one week, one month, and three months after onboarding, before and after the changes are implemented; a rise reflects that the onboarding contributed to higher app retention.

Mockups