Case Study: Designing an impactful experience
Intent-driven onboarding – Utilizing conversational interaction patterns to understand a user’s active intent.
The problem.
Standardized and widely implemented app onboarding tactics for first time users are impersonal & formulaic. They are one-size-fits-all and do very little to provoke designers to think beyond the status quo of existing non-immersive onboarding interactions.
Templatized approaches – Onboarding tactics have settled into several approaches, often chosen based on what we want a user to do or what they assume they needs to know to use an app effectively.
Disruptive design paradigms – New modes of interaction such as conversational UI & voice offer the potential to create more personalized onboarding but often do not consistently deliver the control or outcome that a user desires.
Roadblocks & meandering journeys.
One of the reasons current onboarding approached fall short is they require a first-time user to exert effort (ex. guided walk-throughs & benefit overviews) or provide data (ex. create an account) before showcasing any relevant, tangible value.
They take users on a pre-determined, structured journey without ever understanding their desired destination
They create a roadblock – impeding a product’s ability to showcase their value quickly and in a way that a user recognizes as being able to satisfy their active needs & desires.
What’s Missing? – The ingredients of good onboarding.
Onboarding should feel organic within the context of a user’s experience and satisfy both their functional & emotional needs. It should sense and respond to their desires, then aid them in fulfilling their needs through non-obtrusive support that facilitates trust and produces delight.
On the functional side – Existing onboarding patterns fail to deliver on a user’s functional needs in a way, and at a time, that the user recognizes as valuable.
On the emotional side – Existing patterns fail to make an emotional connection – missing an opportunity to empower a user with the tools and knowledge that highlights a product’s value, at the moment when it would be most useful.
How Do We Improve? – Understanding modes of intent.
A user can arrive at a product for the first time with a wide array of potential needs, goals and associated desires.
Their need could be very specific, or broad and non-specific.
They may be looking to fulfill an urgent need or to engage in passive exploration
Their personality, preferences and interaction style may dictate if they desire guidance or wish to explore on their own.
Guidance vs. organic discovery?
A user’s desires for guidance can fall at radically different points on the spectrum based on their active intent, goals, and needs – in combination with a variety of external and internal factors.
Based on this, the creation of an onboarding framework that enables a product or service to better understand, and act on user intent is a critical touchpoint
It empowers them to deliver a meaningful, impactful, and delightful interaction with a user during their first experience and use.
My question – How might we…
Utilize patterns and UI components in established design systems such as Material Design (e.g. buttons, alerts) …
In combination with widely understood patterns of interaction (e.g. chat interface)…
To construct hybrid interaction frameworks that facilitate deeper engagement & connections with users?
Existing patterns.
Could one or a combination of hybrid interaction patterns be used to construct a framework for a more immersive, experience-centric onboarding experience?
Understanding intent.
Could this framework be utilized to help us better understand a user’s active intent?
Acting upon intent.
Could intent be used to craft more personalized experiences that empower users with tools and knowledge that support their discovery and facilitate success beyond their first interaction with a product?
My goals & approach.
The goal of this exploration was to experiment with a reusable framework for powering immersive app onboarding experience that are capable of learning a user’s active intent and goals, then delivering a relevant experience based upon them.
Combining patterns – My approach leveraged an established design system (Material Design), in combination with a broad interaction pattern (Conversational UI), weaved together and brought to life via experience design.
Leveraging efficiencies – Established component libraries allowed me to bring my concept to life quicker, while utilizing design and interaction paradigms that many users are already familiar with.
What I created – An interaction framework.
The outcome of my exploration was a conceptual onboarding framework that could be used to create immersive experiences leveraging four distinct moments, beginning when a user opens an app for the first time –
Tease + Offer + Reinforce + Deliver.
Tease – On load, we “Tease” a user with a sample of the content and tangible value we offer
Offer – Followed immediately by an “Offer” to assist/guide them in accomplishing their goal.
Reinforce – f they decline assistance, we can assume they wish to explore on their own, and “Reinforce” where they can access guidance in the future.
Deliver – If they accept, we are free to engage them directly, collect information on their active intent and goal, then “Deliver” a set of personalized, relevant options which fulfill that need.
Applying the framework – An example.
The example below demonstrates how the framework’s four distinct moments can be used to create an onboarding experience for a restaurant reservation booking app on an Android mobile device.
Scenario – A user wants to to secure a reservation at a restaurant where they would be interested in dining.
Starting point – The flow begins as a user opens the app for the very first time. To the app, the user’s expectations are unknown.
Scalability – Additional application examples.
With minor tweaks to the approach, the intent-driven onboarding approach can be applied to different types of products, services, or information aggregators – from restaurant reservations, to finding a stylist, buying a pair of headphones, or finding a charitable organization to contribute to.
Capturing intent – Structuring intelligent conversational interactions.
Conversational UI question flows are most effective when kept short and sweet – rapidly progressing to a point at which you are able to offer relevant, tangible content and value to the user.
The 5 w’s (who, what, where, how, & why) can be used to define and construct impactful and effective conversation flows across a myriad of product and service types.
Acquiring a user’s active intent using the 5 w’s – An example.
The first step in constructing a conversation flow using the 5 W’s model is to identify which “W” can be used to construct a leading question that will provide you with a critical piece of data that can easily be built upon.
In the case of a restaurant reservation app, “When” was identified as the critical piece of data to collect first.
From there, the other W’s can be used interchangeably to construct divergent question flows that collect data.
This data can be used to discover & understand a user’s active intent, goals, and desires – providing an opportunity to act upon that intent by delivering curated, personalized content.
What I learned.
Here are a few things I learned along the way.
User intent is the key to unlocking product superpower.
A product should behave organically within the context of a user’s experience. By sensing and responding to a user’s active intent, we speak to a user’s functional and emotional needs – going beyond delight to generate gratitude.
Standard design patterns shouldn’t be the status quo.
Just because everyone has one, doesn’t mean you should. Understanding the value you offer, and how and when a user will consume is – then catering your experience to capitalize on moments that matter is paramount to success.
It’s their product, not yours.
Stop projecting what you want a customer to know about your product. Instead, move beyond a transactional experience by design an ecosystem of interactions that empower them to recognize, then extract value on their own terms.
Open-source design language system are not your enemy.
They can and should be utilized to supercharge your experimentation and prototyping process – empowering you to get something in front of users and gather feedback faster and more efficiently.
Want to know more?
Have questions? Want to learn more about my the intent-driven onboarding framework and my experiments using conversational interaction patterns to understand intent? Contact me.