Unlocking product potential:
Raising the standard for product onboarding
DESKTOP | B2B SaaS
PROJECT OVERVIEW
SKILLS
Research
Stakeholder Management
Presentation
Role
Lead Product Designer
TIMELINE
3 Weeks
(February 2023)
CHALLENGE
For the Business
New customer acquisition is more expensive than existing customer expansion, even more so in a down market. Unqork needed a long term offering to help with product led growth via self service awareness, conversion, and adoption.
For the User
Onboarding can be confusing, and the current training offerings should be tailored to meet the needs of beginner to advanced level creators.
FRAMING THE OPPORTUNITY
Introduce onboarding best practices throughout the customer lifecycle
How might we infuse product education to continuously upskill our users?
FINAL OUTCOME
Socializing the big ideas and inspiring quick wins
I introduced my onboarding and product education proposals to the Chief Product Officer and wider platform engineering team, which resulted in adding net new features to the product roadmap.
Research
Auditing best in class onboarding examples
I learned product onboarding best practices from a variety of resources, from live webinars to recorded case studies to conducting my own competitive and comparative audits.
STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT
Successful product onboarding requires a concerted effort between several teams including product marketing, enablement (instructional content), customer success, and community (creator resources). I conducted 1-on-1 interviews with the leads of each department to understand their short and long-term priorities to drive alignment and contribute to the onboarding vision.
IDEATION
Creating a framework based on the additive learning methodology
To guide my explorations and ensure product adoption for users of beginner to advanced levels, I created a visual based on additive learning principles. Additive learning builds upon prior knowledge, allowing learners to gain a deeper understanding of the platform.
I layered on different aspects of learning such as gamification, learning communities, and different learning pedagogy to engage users.
Finally, to ground my explorations, I used ‘How Might We’ statements to create new problem-solving opportunities.
FINAL ITERATION
A strategy that hooks users from beginner to expert status
I ensured that each product education feature aligned to a company or product goal
RETROSPECTIVE
The biggest challenge was designing for both short-term initiatives and the long-term vision.
Because of feasibility concerns in the short-term, I prematurely limited some of the long-term possibilities I proposed.
What if we...
Hired a celebrity to record tutorials?
Created Unqork Qamps where customers could vacation and learn the platform?
Established local meetups for Unqork users to share ideas?
Created courses and certifications available in universities?
Given the short time frame for this initiative and my audience comprised of internal stakeholders, I had to strike a balance between realistic implementation constraints and vision. For the next iteration, I will push the envelope further on what’s possible for the Unqork platform.