Onboarding is where most products lose most of their users. People sign up with interest and leave before they reach the moment the product becomes useful. Good onboarding UX is about one thing: shortening the distance between sign-up and that first success. Here are twelve principles.
Before and during sign-up
1. Show value before asking for commitment. Let people see the product, try a demo or use a feature before creating an account, where you can.
2. Ask for the minimum. Email and password, or single sign-on. Every extra field loses people. Ask for the rest later, when it is needed.
3. Explain why you ask. If you need a role or team size to personalise the experience, say so: "So we can suggest the right templates."
The first session
4. Define the first success. For a reference tool it is saving and finding the first item. For a design tool, making something. Design everything around getting there.
5. Prefer a checklist to a tour. Three to five setup steps with visible progress give users control. Long tours that point at every button get skipped.
6. Teach in context. Show a hint when a feature becomes relevant, not before. One sentence, one action, easy to dismiss.
7. Design the empty states. A new account is full of empty screens. Each one should explain what goes here and offer one clear action, or sample content. See empty state design.
8. Offer a shortcut. Templates, sample data or importing from another tool can deliver value in seconds.
After the first session
9. Follow up with purpose. Emails should help users take the next step, not list features. "You saved 3 references. Here is how to find them by description."
10. Celebrate real progress. A small confirmation when users complete something important reinforces the behaviour. Skip confetti for trivial steps.
11. Make help easy to find. A visible help link or chat, especially in the first week.
Measure it
12. Track activation, not sign-ups. Define the action that predicts long-term use, measure how many new users reach it and how long it takes, and test changes against it.
Mobile onboarding specifics
- Ask for permissions such as notifications or camera only when the user needs them, with a clear reason.
- Keep any intro screens to three or fewer, with a skip option.
- Let people start using the app before creating an account where you can.
Where to find onboarding examples
Onboarding is one of the best-documented patterns in real-product libraries. Page Flows records complete onboarding journeys, and Mobbin and Refero have thousands of first-run screens; see the best Mobbin alternatives. Also sign up for products you admire and capture every screen and email, as you would in a UX competitive analysis.
Save the flows that work with a note on why. In GetRef, the text inside each screen is searchable, so "checklist onboarding with progress" or "permission prompt with reason" finds your examples. See saving UI inspiration from mobile apps.
Common questions
- What is onboarding UX?
- Onboarding UX is the experience a new user has from first visit or sign-up until they first get real value from the product. Good onboarding shortens that path and helps users understand what to do next.
- What are the best practices for user onboarding?
- Get users to their first success as quickly as possible, ask only for information you need now, prefer short checklists and in-context hints over long product tours, design helpful empty states, and measure how many new users reach activation.
- Should I use a product tour?
- Long tours that explain every feature before the user has done anything are usually skipped and forgotten. Short, in-context hints that appear when a feature becomes relevant work better.
- How long should onboarding be?
- As short as possible to reach the first meaningful result. Every extra screen or question loses some users, so each one should clearly earn its place.
