FREVER
Onboarding Tutorial: An Agile Approach for Today and Tomorrow
“You can never be satisfied with your onboarding,” said Sebastian Knutsson, the founder of King. A strong onboarding experience is critical—it’s the first interaction users have with the app, setting the tone for how they understand and engage with it.
Despite its importance,We struggled for a while to design an effective onboarding process, facing several challenges along the way. The turning point came when we adopted an agile approach, using iterative solutions to address user needs and support future development.
Role: UX/UI design
Timeframe: Oct 2020 - Sep 2023
Team: Niklas, Ruizi, Joakim
Context
& Challenges.
Premise
As Frever expanded with more features and concepts, users found it increasingly overwhelming to understand how the app works. User studies revealed that it took at least 40 minutes for users to grasp the app's functionality and game mechanics, which is far too long for an intuitive experience.
The biggest challenge is that...
With so many concepts and features, including soft currency, hard currency, session pass, XP, style battles, video editor, character editor, and more, how can we design a simple onboarding process to help users understand these concepts within a reasonable time frame?
User Interview.
We conducted user interviews to better understand our users. The participants were required to be people who had never used Frever before, allowing us to gather insights on the questions and challenges new users face during testing.
Comparative
Analysis.
To better understand what makes an effective onboarding flow, I analyzed several successful onboarding processes from competitors. This comparative analysis provided valuable insights that guided our improvements and iterations on the onboarding experience.
Tiktok
TikTok primarily uses subtle hints to guide users through onboarding. After signing up, users are directed to a preferences page to select their interests and then taken directly to the feed. Hints appear on key features, such as scrolling up to watch the next video, tapping the 'Create' button to make videos, adding effects, and more.
Zepeto
Zepeto combines a hint system with a quest system to guide users through onboarding. After signing up and customizing their own character, users are guided by quests to explore the app's features. Users earn rewards for completing tasks, motivating them to continue exploring.
Highrise
Highrise primarily uses a quest system to guide users through exploring the app. After signing up, users can dress up their avatar and are then directed to join various spaces to interact with others. Each time users complete a specific onboarding task, they are rewarded, encouraging continued engagement.
Testing
& Iterations.
After many trials and setbacks, we finally achieved success. Frever is a unique social product with a gamified experience, meaning there was no standard onboarding process we could rely on. We had to identify the pain points users encountered during onboarding and devise a fun and intuitive approach to help them navigate the app. The challenge was to build an experience that is not only easy to grasp but also motivating and inspiring, ensuring users would want to continue using the app in the long run.
Testing 1.0: Hint System
The hint system is a popular and effective onboarding method, offering clear explanations of desired features. From user interviews, we identified several features that users found confusing. To address this, we created brief explanations and placed them next to these features. The timing of when hints appear is just as crucial as the hints themselves, so we carefully scheduled their display based on research into when users need the guidance.
Testing Result:
The hint system somewhat improved users' understanding of features after they read the explanations. However, many users continued to ignore the hints. Some users intentionally skipped them, believing they already understood the feature or preferring to explore on their own, while others simply did not notice them.
Overall, while the hint system offered some assistance, the data shows minimal improvement in retention rates. It did not achieve the goal of motivating users to engage more with the app. We need to identify and implement a better solution.
Testing 2.0: Linear onboarding Flow
Since the hint system didn't effectively motivate or educate users, we're considering introducing guided onboarding.
Guided onboarding with a linear flow is a common approach for introducing complex game mechanics. It helps users quickly grasp basic features and often motivates them to continue playing.
Based on user research, we designed and tested a new guided onboarding flow, aiming to better understand how users would react to and interact with this type of onboarding process.
Testing Result:
We conducted an A/B test on the linear gamified onboarding flow with two user groups. Group A, the control group, received no onboarding flow and landed directly on the home screen. Group B, however, was guided through a linear gamified onboarding process.
Surprisingly, Group B showed a high drop-off rate throughout the onboarding process, with only about 42% of users completing it and reaching the home screen. This performance was worse than that of Group A. Users in Group B reported feeling impatient with the forced linear onboarding flow.
As a result, we decided to discontinue the linear onboarding flow investigation, as we don’t want to risk losing so many users during the onboarding phase.
Testing 3.0: Quest
After experiencing several failures, we concluded that users need some flexibility while learning the features and that the process should be enjoyable to encourage continued exploration.
Based on these insights, we conducted further investigations and discussions, leading to the decision to design an optional onboarding quest. Users can choose to skip onboarding tasks if they prefer.
The quest is structured into 4 sections, each with increasing difficulty. Users need to complete 1-3 tasks and earn currency upon finishing an entire section. The quest is designed to be engaging and flexible, allowing users to progress at their own pace.
Testing Results:
We conducted an A/B test of the onboarding quest. Group A, the control group, had no onboarding, while Group B experienced the onboarding quest.
The results showed that Group B had a high completion rate, with most users finishing all the tasks. Additionally, retention and engagement rates in Group B saw significant improvements, indicating the onboarding quest was successful. As a result, we decided to roll out the onboarding quest to all users.
Final Design
The onboarding was finally successfully rolled out after several unsuccessful attempts. The final version received positive feedback from users and effectively improved day-2 retention for the app.
Sign Up and Bring Your Avatar to Life!
Begin by creating an account, then craft or select your perfect avatar. Customize and dress it up to make it truly unique. Let the fun begin!
Dive into the Onboarding Quest!
Onboarding quest is divided into 4 engaging sections, each packed with 1-3 fun tasks. Complete a section and earn shiny coins as the reward.
Keep going, level up, and unlock the next challenge until you’ve conquered them all. Get started and embark on the adventure now!
