How did we transform the onboarding experience for new users, and what were the key challenges and solutions?
Lead Designer
Interaction Designer
4-6 weeks
2023
fig 1.0 New User Journey Design
Background
Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator is like a magical tool that helps you manage this network easily. It simplifies tasks like setting up new devices, managing policies, and troubleshooting issues.
Challenge
New users are facing significant challenges in navigating our product's complex features and setting up their instances. The steep learning curve and intricate policy configurations are leading to frustration and delayed productivity, impacting over 2,000 customers.
Goal
User Goal
Easily set up user's product instance and explore functionalities through a guided onboarding journey
Business Goal
Reduce onboarding time and increase user engagement with a clear and informative setup process
Solution
To address these challenges, we implemented an interactive, step-by-step onboarding solution. This comprehensive guide simplifies complex configurations, clarifies technical terms, and highlights new features.
As a result, we achieved a 40% faster user adoption rate and a 60% increase in user satisfaction.
Usability Testing
Feedback from Usability Testing **
Our Cisco network administrators (a subset of our large user base) who use our products to configure, manage, troubleshoot and deploy policies to their fabrics, graciously agreed to answer questions and give us feedback on what is that they are expecting in an onboarding experience and what are their concerns currently.
Through usability testing, we identified user pain points in setting up the instance.
This research helped me develop empathy for our users and understand their desired experience.
According to our usability testing, 60% of users provided the following feedback:
Cumbersome Configuration
New user onboarding takes 25 minutes, while existing users still face a 15 minutes setup process, creating friction in the early user experience
Limited Product Knowledge
New users struggle to navigate setup while simultaneously grasping complex product concepts. This creates confusion and hinders a smooth onboarding experience
New Features Awareness Gap
Users rely on release notes to learn about new features, indicating they might miss out on functionalities if they don't actively seek out updates.
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a thorough analysis of onboarding experiences across various apps and websites (refer 1.2). I meticulously examined how different industries approached welcoming new users, paying close attention to the techniques employed, the information conveyed, and the overall user experience. This research allowed me to identify industry best practices and pinpoint areas for potential improvement in our own onboarding process.
fig 1.2 Competitive Analysis
Explorations
Following several brainstorming sessions, constructive debates between the designers and the cross functional teams, we explored different options and narrowed it down to 3 which made the most sense to everyone given the release dates and tight deadlines.
Challenges
Following are the challenges we faced while iterating
Final Designs
After all the explorations and addressing the challenges, we successfully crafted the designs!
The Welcome
We designed an onboarding greeting flow to guide new users through the platform, explaining key concepts and navigation features.
The Greeting
Upon logging in, users are met with a friendly screen that welcomes them and offers an introduction to the product. Refer fig 1.3
fig 1.3 The Greeting
The Terminology
Guiding users through the platform's terminology and vocabulary to enhance their understanding. Refer fig 1.4
fig 1.4 The Terminology
The Product Features
Bringing attention to crucial features and specifying their positions within the product interface. Refer fig 1.5
fig 1.5 The Product Features
Getting Started
Creating an interactive experience to encourage users to explore the platform and gain a deeper understanding.
The Steps
The interactive guided steps help users to setup their system without worrying about the order of configuration to ensure error-free deployments. Refer fig 1.6
fig 1.6 The Steps
The Step Explanations
On hover of each step, users will find two actions,
- "Go" will take them to the configuration screen and help configure the object
- "Tell Me More" would slide in a panel with thorough explanations of how the features work and the specific steps users should follow to get started. Refer fig 1.7
fig 1.7 The Step Explanation
The Journey Progress
"Getting Started Progress" will help the user to save their progress and come back to the journey to complete the remaining steps. fig 1.8
fig 1.8 The Journey Progress
The Toast
Whenever the user wants to configure an object on a step, after they save the configuration they will see this toast to help them come back to the journey. Refer fig 1.9
fig 1.9 The Toast
What's New
Users can now discover the latest features in the release and leverage suggestions to explore the product further
The Hero Feature
Users get to explore the most important feature of the new release. Refer fig 1.10
fig 1.10 The Hero Feature
The Other Features
Theres a way to also try out other features that are new to the release. Refer fig 1.11
fig 1.11 The Other Features
Release Updates and Notes
Users can also get acquainted with all the additional updates and release notes for more details. Refer fig 1.12
fig 1.12 Release Updates and Notes
Feature Prototype
Impact
After numerous iterations with all the stakeholders, when the designs were finalized, our product manager and technical marketing engineering team utilized them to gather feedback from our customers at Cisco Live. Our research team calculated the following results and impact.
35%
Ease of Configuration
40%
Better Product Knowledge
25%
Visibility of New Features
Conclusion
In conclusion, our goal to help new users learn our product through a guided setup process has been successful. By clearly showing them where to find key features and explaining the terms, we've made onboarding better.
Our approach has led to new users feeling comfortable with the system 40% quicker than before, and we've seen a 60% increase in their satisfaction with how easy it is to learn the product. These results show that our efforts to streamline the onboarding process are effectively helping new users get up to speed quickly and use our product more efficiently.