People who create products often talk about two important ideas: the Aha! moment and user activation. While these ideas might seem very similar at first, they happen at different times and have two different results. In this article, I’ll explain what these ideas mean, why they are important, and provide some tips for making users like, adopt, and engage with your product more.
What Is an Aha! Moment?
An Aha!moment occurs when someone suddenly sees how useful and amazing a product is. They might think, “Wow, this is great! I really like this!” It’s an emotional response to discovering something new that could change their life.
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This is the point at which people start to understand how a product could solve their problems, make their work easier, or improve their daily life. This moment is very important because it makes people interested in and excited about using the product.
Ramli John, author of the book Product-Led Onboarding: How to Turn New Users into Lifelong Customers, provides this descriptionof Aha! moments:
Initial discovery—“Aha! I understand how this product can help me.”
First use—“Aha! I’ve tried the product out for the first time and it’s useful.”
Continued use—“Aha! I’ve adopted this product into my workflow, and it’s saving me a ton of time.”
Advocacy—“Aha! I’ve invited my colleagues, and we’re working more efficiently together.”
The Anatomy of the Aha! Moment
Every company’s aim is for their users to experience an Aha! moment during onboarding because this increases the likelihood that they’ll continue using the product. However, this raises several important questions:
How can you identify your product’s Aha! moment?
Can you use prompts or guidance to help users experience this Aha! moment feeling?
Can users have more than one Aha! moment?
Is the Aha! moment the same for all users?
Do Aha! moments lead to better product activation?
Identifying Aha! Moments in User Onboarding
A lot of factors must come into play for an experience to be considered an Aha! moment. Moreover, users’ deriving or perceiving they’ve derived unique value from a product is a subjective impression.
Here is a simple framework that defines the Aha! moment:
What can this product do that others can’t, or what does it do better?
Why would users choose this product over another?
Does discovering this value change the emotional state of the user by bringing joy and excitement to the user?
A team—including a marketing manager, UX designer, and product manager—could contribute to and work together to create this Aha! moment.
The Timing Can Be Surprising
There are some misconceptions about when an Aha! moment occurs in the customer lifecycle. It is commonly thought that Aha! moments occur during the first use of a product. The user starts using the product, then immediately realizes the value it offers.
However, Aha! moments can happen before the user even signs up for a product or, in some cases after the user has been using the product for quite a while. The moment of value discovery is what triggers the Aha! moment sensation. Whenever that discovery happens, the user can experience an Aha! moment. Thus, it is important to note that Aha! moments can be distinct from the onboarding process.
Let’s consider an example from SkiniveAI. This Aha! moment, shown in Figure 1, occurs before signup. A dermatologist immediately experiences an Aha! moment on the first screen—“Nails ‘PRIMING’ with panache!” The user gets to see what she is going to get first hand in a video of a girl checking her skin stats using the tool. Perhaps the Aha! moment occurs much sooner because this is a micro-use tool.
User activation, on the other hand, is the moment when users get actual value from a product. It’s when they fully engage with and activate their initial set of persona-relevant key features. Activation is the phase at which users start to experience the benefits of a product firsthand.
Defining what counts as activation for a product is essential because optimizing its activation rate can have the greatest downstream impact on revenue and other key performance indicators (KPIs).
How Do Aha! Moments and Activation Relate?
I wanted to test the degree to which Aha! moments are related to user activation. Activation is the point at which a customer has reached a defined level of engagement with the product, after which they’ve extracted enough value from the product that they are deemed to be successful and are statistically likely to remain a customer. Activation is measured using a defined set of actions that the user has completed in the product.
Thus, the ability to measure activation intrinsically defines it. In defining a product’s activation points, look at the patterns of usage of the most successful customers and identify their commonalities.
Irresistible Moments of Emotion
Understanding the difference between an Aha! moment and activation is crucial. An Aha! moment happens when the user discovers the value in a product, while activation occurs when a business sees value in that user. As a researcher who focuses on tangible results, Aha! moments are particularly fascinating to me because of their subjectivity. Figure 2 shows how Intercom depicts the Aha! moment and product activation.
These moments reveal how software can evoke emotional reactions. While apps might not create the same intense emotions as the typical Bollywood or K-pop drama on Netflix, they still bring delight and a sense of connection.
Figure 2—Aha! moments and product activation
Defining and Improving Activation
To improve a product’s activation rate, start by defining what activation means for the product. This involves understanding the personas and the jobs they need to accomplish using the tool. Create branched user experiences that lead to key activation points, ensuring that each step in the onboarding process builds toward these key events.
Interactive Walkthroughs Versus Product Tours
Linear product tours can overwhelm users by giving them too much information at once, often ignoring their current needs and knowledge. Instead, you can create interactive walkthroughs that the user’s actions trigger. This approach ensures that users receive information that is relevant to their tasks at the right time, preventing ToolTip overload and enhancing their overall experience.
Replit’s User Onboarding: An Aha! Moment After Signup
Replit’s new user-onboarding journey is packed with valuable lessons. First, it is user centric and customizes the user experience by delving into the user’s context. It uses personalization to understand the context of the user, then displays ToolTips with brilliant microcopy and animation to guide them through the task. Personalizing user onboarding requires understanding the needs of the users and helping them to be more successful sooner.
Replit’s user-interface design is nothing short of fantastic. It is a visual delight, perfectly aligning with the conceptual and mental models of developers.
But let’s talk about the challenges that onboarding a new user can bring. This can be tricky terrain, especially because Replit personalizes the experience based on the user’s plans and software-creation experience. Read my mini-audit of Replit’s user onboarding, which is contextual, and where it could be improved.
Accelerating the Aha! Moment
Let’s consider some strategies that can help users understand the value of a product immediately and, thus, get them to the Aha! moment faster. You can leverage user onboarding to achieve faster time to value.
Krystal Higgins, author of the book Better Onboarding, has shared some thought-provoking questions, similar to the following, that can help you discover these user journeys:
What are the key actions that, if not completed, often lead to users’ abandoning a product?
Which actions are foundational steps that the user must complete before the user can proceed with other key actions?
How can you prioritize these essential steps?
Which actions are applicable and useful in various contexts within the product?
How can you emphasize these frequently occurring actions?
Are you focusing on actions that you can implement effectively with your current resources?
Do you have the capacity to support these actions without overextending your team?
The User-Onboarding Journey
User onboarding is not about driving users to a single Aha! moment, but rather about guiding them through a series of Aha! moments. These moments occur before, during, and after users sign up for a product. Each Aha! moment represents a point at which users realize increasing value from the product.
A seasoned product designer and onboarding UX consultant consultant with more than 12 years of experience crafting easy-to-learn, engaging user-onboarding experiences. He has helped drive user adoption for major brands such as HSBC, Michelin, IBM, and Publicis Sapient and is passionate about unlocking a product’s true potential through best-in-class onboarding practices. Himanshu also holds an MBA in Marketing and International Business. Read More
