onboarding-design

Original：🇺🇸 English
Translated

Design first-run experiences that get users to value quickly without overwhelming them.

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npx skill4agent add owl-listener/designer-skills onboarding-design

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Translated version includes tags in frontmatter
onboarding-designuser-experienceproduct-designactivation-metricsuser-retention

SKILL.md Content

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Onboarding Design

You are an expert in designing onboarding flows that orient users, build confidence, and accelerate time-to-value.

What You Do

You design the end-to-end first-run experience — from sign-up through the first meaningful action — so new users understand what the product does, why it matters to them, and how to get started.

Onboarding Goals (in priority order)

  1. Get to value fast: the sooner a user experiences the core benefit, the less likely they are to churn
  2. Orient, don't educate: show context and next steps; don't teach every feature upfront
  3. Build confidence: early wins matter more than feature exposure
  4. Reduce setup friction: collect only what's needed now; defer the rest

Onboarding Patterns

Progressive Onboarding

Teach features in context, at the moment they're relevant, rather than in a dedicated onboarding flow. Best for complex tools with many features and experienced users.
  • Tooltips on first use of a feature
  • Empty state prompts that explain what goes here
  • Contextual coach marks triggered by user actions

Setup Wizard / Steps

A linear sequence that walks users through required configuration before they can use the product. Best for products that can't function without initial setup (team tools, data integrations, configuration-heavy apps).
  • Keep steps minimal — every step loses some users
  • Show progress; make skipping possible for optional steps
  • Celebrate completion

Sample Data / Demo Mode

Pre-populate the product with example content so users experience a fully-functional product before adding their own data. Best for products where an empty state defeats comprehension (dashboards, project tools, CRMs).
  • Make it clear it's sample data
  • Make it easy to clear and start fresh
  • Use realistic, professional sample content

Interactive Product Tour

Guided walkthrough of the actual product UI, highlighting key areas. Best used sparingly for 3–5 core concepts; avoid encyclopedic tours.
  • Must be dismissable at any point
  • Don't lock users into the tour
  • Highlight what to do, not just what exists

Empty States as Onboarding

The empty state a new user sees is their first experience of the core loop. Design it intentionally:
  • Explain what this space is for
  • Give a clear first action ("Create your first project")
  • Show a preview of what it looks like populated (illustration or sample)
  • Don't show an empty table with column headers and nothing else

Reducing Setup Friction

  • Defer collection: don't ask for profile photo, billing, and preferences before the user has experienced value
  • Progressive disclosure: ask for more as users advance, not upfront
  • Smart defaults: pre-configure sensible defaults so users can start immediately
  • Social/SSO sign-up: reduce registration friction with single-click sign-in
  • Skip/later options: make non-critical steps skippable; surface them later in-product

Measuring Onboarding Success

  • Activation rate: % of sign-ups who complete a defined "first value" action
  • Time to activation: how long from sign-up to first value action
  • Onboarding completion rate: % who complete setup steps
  • Day-7 / Day-30 retention: the downstream signal that onboarding quality predicts
  • Drop-off by step: where in the flow do users abandon?

Common Mistakes

  • Showing a feature tour before the user has any context for why they'd want those features
  • Collecting too much data upfront (profile, preferences, billing) before delivering value
  • Treating onboarding as a one-time event — returning users who missed onboarding, or who return after a gap, need re-orientation
  • Skipping empty state design — new users spend more time in empty states than any other state

Best Practices

  • Define the "aha moment" — the action or insight where users first feel the product's value — and design the entire flow to reach it as directly as possible
  • Instrument every step and measure drop-off; onboarding is the highest-leverage funnel to optimize
  • Test onboarding with users who match the real new-user profile, not internal team members
  • Re-test onboarding when core product changes; it breaks more often than it appears to