Secrets of Onboarding screens in apps.
Most apps that we use do not have onboarding Screens or Loading screens. Onboarding screens are more prevalent in IOS apps as compared to Android apps.
Do we need onboarding screens? Let’s try to find out how they impact the apps.
Onboarding and loading screens play a vital role in apps. If we observe most onboarding screens, they are a wall of text and images. That is not interesting enough to capture the user’s attention. Most of the users will skip past the initial onboarding flow.
Have you ever remembered the onboarding screen of any app? Most likely, you don’t.
Furthermore, do you remember if an app had an onboarding flow? Again, you probably don’t.
According to me the idea of onboarding can be divided into two ways:
-> Hidden Onboarding
-> Attention Onboarding
Hidden Onboarding:
Hidden onboarding occurs when the onboarding flow is integrated into the app. There is no separate onboarding flow. We take advantage of the app’s space to interact with the user. The user will never know that some mechanics are a part of a hidden onboarding flow. One good example of this would be notion.
If you have opened an empty notion page, it would look like this:
As you can see onboarding is hidden as the mechanics of the product.
I have tried to apply it in my app. As you can see, my onboarding flow consists of questions that help us calculate the water amount.
The series of questions helps us do three things:
- Introduce that the app is working for its user
- Introduce the idea of water-tracking
- Adds positive friction
(We will talk about positive friction in some other article)
Attention Onboarding:
Attention onboarding occurs when the onboarding flow grabs the attention of the user. It is not just an introduction to the app. It also has a value on its own.
One example of this is HeadSpace.
Their interactive videos not only introduce the idea of meditation but also try to add value separately from the app.
I do not remember any onboarding flow. But, I remember the onboarding of Headspace. It is a classic example of attention-grabbing.
Thank you for reading this small article on onboarding. I will try to write another article where I will apply these principles. Let me know what you think.
If I have written something wrong please forgive me. I hope you enjoyed this article.
Thank you.
Your captain (the commute)
Hitesh Kohli
I am building my app. Here:
