Know your users

It always starts like this: “Hey, we need to add some questions to the onboarding flow.”

We wanted to start profiling users signing up for our platform. I had to update the onboarding flow. What I got from sales initially was a form with questions that resembled my tax forms.

Here’s a quick story about how I approached it and a bunch of other thoughts I have on profiling during onboarding.

My approach

In order to get a better completion rate I decided to make it look like not a form.

I tried to reduce cognitive overload by displaying just one question at a time.

I started with the “Floor plan types” question to use animated icons for the possible answers and build some interest.

I utilized elements from our illustration system, which I had previously experimented with.

I used the progress indicator to show that it’s not going to be long and added a conversational feel to it by confirming the user’s actions before asking questions.

I was quite happy with the result I must say.

Did it work?

Not really. We implemented it and removed it after a while for different reasons.

Profiling done right makes a lot of sense in the B2B world. While caring about reducing onboarding friction is important, understanding your customer properly shapes your product strategy — you can’t beat that.

I would not demonise drop-off during profiling completion.

But the goal is to guide users to discover the right feature set that will help them experience the ultimate ‘aha’ moment, using the information you just gained.

There’s a transactional element to it: ‘Tell us the truth about yourself, and we’ll do our best to show you how we can help you,’ or set you up for success as I put it in my prototype.

When you fail to keep your side of the deal, it ends up as an obstacle in the worst possible place in the world — during sign up.