Onboarding for Inspection App

Background

Problem Statement

• Zero conversion from organic user sign-ups (150 sign-ups/month --> ~0 conversion)

• Heavy reliance on sales-led POC conversions that can take up to 6-8months to close

Early Speculations

• Not seeing value fast enough: Users are not able to discover the value of Inspect through self-exploration of the app during the 30-day free trial
  
  

• Friction during upgrading: Lack of transparent and attractive pricing plan and seamless payment
  
  

Searching for Signals

User Drop-off Points

We started looking at a recent usability tests to look for possible indications of what users could struggle with.

Beyond the user anecdotes pin-pointing all the frictions points in the app such as the attachment of floorplan, it was also evident new users encountered a learning curve when learning the concepts of Spots within the app.

When diving a deeper look into the metrics on our analytics tool (Mixpanel), it was evident users seem to find it a challenge to get a new asset up and running, with a 60% drop-off rate.

Hypothesis 1: Users have not enabled location data on desktop or mobile. It would be impossible to set up an asset when location data is mandatory in such a scenario. Making fields non-mandatory could reduce friction

Hybrid of Learning Behaviours

Users alternated between a DIY approach of learning the new tool by tapping and clicking around to figure out different features vs. a minority of users who still look for a more structure, tutorial-watching approach to learn the tool.

Getting Value Out of the Product

To probe further into the problem, I approached sales to understand a little better what are some of the challenges they have witnessed customers experience first-hand when using our inspection software and this is a general concensus:

“If the user does not also utilise the app, they can’t do much only from a web login”

Hypothesis 2: Having a seamless sign-in between web and native app could incentivise users to try out different features across platforms, thus maximising the value of Inspect.

Design Explorations

Making Our Core Features Discoverable

We identified 3 value drivers for Inspect:

• Customisation: Flexibility in configuring report and spot templates

• Reporting: Instantaneous spot analysis and report sharing

• Collaboration: Work with teammates across web and mobile

To guide the designs, I've also come up with 3 guiding principles:

• Don't overwhelm users: User guides and tooltips should only be shown when it's relevant to the user's workflow

• Embrace user's learning by doing: Even if he skips all onboarding or updates, we should make sure he can explore the product within a safe environment

• Show not tell: Invite users to try something out instead of writing long instructions
  
  

Approach 1: Quick Action Cards

Approach 2: Reminder Prompt

Approach 3: Mini Checklist

Findings from Testing

I tested with a group of internal users consisting of colleagues from out in-house civil engineers. Here are some insights:

• "Get started" cards taking up more real estate than actual UI: Users appear to be confused by 2 primary action buttons. "Do "set up asset" and "+" buttons do the same thing?"

• Users do not like to be restricted: "Can I skip the steps?", "Can I dismiss this?"; Users like to be able to try out the product and get down to work as fast as possible

• No "anchor" screen during setup: Position of the account setup reminder feels off to be on the asset card screen since users would be spending the bulk of their time within an asset instead

Outcome

Using Resources Effectively

The team had a tight timeline, so we decided to be precise with the scope of work.

During the testing of early prototypes for the native app onboarding which included approaches such as slidable action cards and a mini checklist, users seem to prefer a much more learn-by-doing approach since what you can do on the app is rather straightforward. We decided that help and guidance can be communicated more efficiently through helpful empty states and contextual tooltips.

The web app, on the other hand, has more complex features such as template customisation and team collaboration that may require a bit more in-app promotion and education, therefore, we decided to go with a more elaborate mini-checklist for the web app.

What Success Looks Like

Since the project is yet to be released, here are some of our projected success metrics:

• Asset completion rate should 2x: New asset completion rate should improve from the current 40% (avg) —> 80%

• High completion rate for Quickstart modal: New users should be completing, on average, 3 out of 4 of the Quickstart items

• Increased user engagement in core feature in first 30days: To start seeing more engagement with our core features like spots creation and report generation among new users in first month of sign-up