User Onboarding Flows: Best Practices & Examples for Mobile Apps

Your app's marketing campaign was a hit. New installs are soaring, and you're celebrating success. But the excitement is short-lived. Within 3 days, 77% of new users abandon your app. After a month, that number climbs to 90%.

These aren't just estimates. Studies confirm these alarming drop-off rates. The financial toll isn't just potential revenue loss; it's wasted marketing spend on users who didn't end up sticking around.

The culprit? Often, it's poor onboarding.

However, this steep drop-off can be combated with a well-thought-out onboarding flow. Done right, onboarding can engage users, set the stage for long-term retention, and ultimately drive your app's success.

But what exactly is user onboarding, and how can it be optimized to ensure a great user experience? In this blog, we'll delve into the essentials of creating effective onboarding flows for different industries, explore the impact of onboarding on user engagement and retention, and discuss how to measure its success.

What is User Onboarding?

User onboarding is the process of introducing new users to your app and guiding them through its initial setup and core features. It's the critical first step in the user's journey, setting the tone for their entire experience with your product.

The onboarding flow is the sequence of steps that new or existing users take when they open your product.

An example of a flow includes a welcome page, two informational splash screens, and a login and registration page.

Why is app onboarding important?

By clearly demonstrating your app's value and functionality from the start, you're not just teaching users how to use your app - you're showing them why they should keep using it.

1. Impact on User Experience: A smooth, intuitive onboarding process creates a positive first impression, making users feel welcomed and supported.
2. Impact on User Engagement: Well-designed onboarding demonstrates how the app meets user needs, motivating further exploration and interaction.
3. Impact on User Retention: Users who quickly grasp an app's value and find it easy to use are more likely to become loyal customers.

The best app onboarding flows usually answer questions like:

• How can I start using this app?
• How does this app work?
• What are the benefits of this app?
• How does this app solve my problem?
• What data do I need to give to use this app?

The Steps of an App 0nboarding Flow

Include the following elements to make your onboarding process:

1. Welcome Screen: Make a visually appealing first impression that conveys your app's core purpose.
2. Account Creation: Streamline this process to make it as smooth as possible.
3. Feature Highlights: Showcase key features that deliver the most value.
4. Permissions Requests: Explain why certain permissions are needed and how they enhance the user experience.
5. Tutorials or Guided Tours: Provide clear, step-by-step instructions for essential features.
6. Personalization Options: Allow users to customize their experience by setting preferences or profiles.

Examples of App Onboarding Flows by Industry

Different types of apps require different onboarding approaches.You can reverse-engineer what successful players are doing and learn from them to create your own app onboarding flow. Let's look at some examples:

Social Media Apps

These often focus on creating a profile, connecting with friends, and understanding the platform’s unique features. The onboarding flow may include interactive tutorials to help users engage with content and discover communities.

Instagram's onboarding emphasizes finding and following friends and interests:

• Welcome screen introduces the app's purpose: sharing photos and videos
• Prompts users to create an account or log in with Facebook
• Asks for permissions to access photos, camera, and contacts
• Guides users to follow friends and popular accounts based on interests
• Introduces the main feed and how to navigate between posts
• Shows how to create a first post, emphasizing filters and editing tools

E-commerce Apps

They focus on quick account setup and feature highlights that guide users to browse and shop easily. They may also include personalization options, such as setting up payment methods or saving favorite products.

Etsy’s app onboarding focuses on account creation and showcasing product categories, highlighting the ease of browsing and purchasing

• Starts with a brief explanation of Etsy as a marketplace for unique goods
• Presents popular categories and trending items
• Introduces the search function with autocomplete suggestions
• Demonstrates how to favorite items and shops
• Explains the purchasing process, including secure checkout
• Offers to set up notifications for deals and favorite shop updates

Productivity Apps

These often use interactive tutorials to guide users on how to use their key features.

Trello guides users through iterative tutorials demonstrating key features and workflow organization.

• Begins with a simple explanation of Trello's board-list-card system
• Offers a guided tour of a sample board
• Walks users through creating their first board, list, and card
• Demonstrates drag-and-drop functionality
• Introduces collaboration features, showing how to invite team members
• Highlights integrations with other productivity tools

Finance/Banking Apps

They focus heavily on security and trust during onboarding, guiding users through account verification, linking bank accounts, and understanding key financial tools. They may also include educational content to help users make informed financial decisions.

Apps like Coinbase focus on secure account creation and verification processes in their onboarding.

‍

Health and Fitness Apps

They usually involve personalized goal setting and initial data input (e.g., weight, fitness level) during onboarding. These apps might also offer guided tours of workout plans or nutrition tracking features to ensure users know how to maximize the app’s benefits.

MyFitnessPal asks users about their fitness goals during onboarding.

• Begins by asking users about their health goals (lose weight, gain muscle, maintain)
• Collects basic information like age, height, weight, and activity level
• Sets up a personalized daily calorie goal based on input
• Guides users through logging their first meal, demonstrating the food database
• Introduces the meal and exercise logging feature, offers to set up reminders
• Shows how to connect with friends for accountability

Booking Apps

They focus on showcasing the ease of booking, and motivating people to book their first experience- holiday/ travel/ show or more. The process may include setting up a user profile with preferences (such as preferred airlines or hotels), providing tutorials on how to navigate the app’s booking system, and highlighting deals or promotions.

Airbnb inspires new users to discover local experiences with ease.

• Asks users about their travel preferences (leisure, business, local experiences)
• Demonstrates how to search for accommodations with filters
• Explains the booking process and communication with hosts
• Introduces the "Experiences" feature for local activities
• Shows how to save favorite listings and create wishlists
• Offers to set up notifications for deals in favorite destination

Educational and Upskilling Apps

They want the users to set a personalised learning path to be able to build constant habits. The onboarding process includes setting up a learning path, selecting courses, or exploring the platform's educational resources.

Duolingo uses gamification in the onboarding journey to achieve long-term retention.

• Starts by asking users to choose a language and set learning goals
• Introduces the gamified learning system with points and levels
• Guides users through a sample lesson, showcasing different exercise types
• Explains the streak feature to encourage daily practice
• Shows how to set reminders and adjust daily study goals
• Introduces the social features for competing with friends

‍

The key difference lies in what each app prioritizes: social connections, ease of transactions, feature demonstrations, security, or personalization. By tailoring the onboarding process to the specific needs and expectations of their users, these apps increase the likelihood of long-term engagement.

How Can I Improve My App's Onboarding Flow?

To ensure your onboarding process effectively enhances user experience and boosts engagement and retention, consider the following checklist:

1. Keep it Simple and Concise: Don't overwhelm users with information. Focus on what's essential.
2. Highlight Key Features and Benefits: Show users what makes your app valuable to them.
3. Use Progressive Disclosure: Introduce complex features gradually as users become more familiar with your app.
4. Incorporate Interactivity: Let users learn by doing, increasing engagement and retention of information.
5. Provide Skip Options: Allow experienced users to bypass detailed tutorials if they wish.
6. Use Clear and Engaging Visuals: Visual cues can often convey information more effectively than text.
7. Optimize for Different Devices: Ensure your onboarding looks great and functions well on various screen sizes.

If you'd like to dig deeper, here are some examples of how top apps like Gmail, Flipkart and Product Hunt have improved their onboarding screens.

Steer clear of these common onboarding mistakes that can negatively impact user experience and lead to lower retention:

1. Information Overload: Trying to explain every feature at once can overwhelm and frustrate users.
2. Forced Actions: Making users complete non-essential steps can lead to drop-offs.
3. Ignoring User Context: Not considering the user's familiarity with similar apps or their reasons for downloading yours.

Metrics to Measure Onboarding Success

To ensure your onboarding is effectively improving user experience and retention, track these key metrics:

1. Completion Rate: The percentage of users who complete the entire onboarding process.
2. Time to Complete Onboarding: How long it takes users to get through the onboarding flow.
3. Feature Adoption Rate: How quickly and frequently users engage with key features post-onboarding.
4. Time to Value (TTV): How quickly users reach their first 'aha' moment.
5. Day 1, 7, and 30 Retention: Measure short and medium-term engagement.

Growth Tip: Set up experiments and cohort analysis to understand how changes in your onboarding process affect long-term user behavior.

Wrapping Up

As you develop or refine your app, prioritize the onboarding experience. It's an investment that will pay dividends in user satisfaction, engagement, and ultimately, the success of your app.

Effective user onboarding is not just about teaching users how to use your app - it's about showing them why your app is valuable and indispensable to their lives. By focusing on creating a smooth, engaging, and informative onboarding experience, you set the stage for long-term user engagement and retention. Remember, your onboarding process is often your only chance to make a first impression. Make it count!

Create Your Onboarding Flows In a No-code Manner with Plotline

At Plotline, we understand the pivotal role of onboarding in the success of mobile apps. Our UI modules like in-app videos, stories, widgets, coachmarks, tooltips, gamification elements, etc. are designed to make user onboarding as engaging and intuitive as possible.

By using Plotline, companies can create dynamic, user-friendly interfaces that cater specifically to new users, ensuring a memorable first interaction with your app, in a fully no-code manner.

To see how we can transform the onboarding experience for your mobile app and drive better engagement and retention, we invite you to explore our free trial.