Experiences: Product Experiences

Have you ever wondered why some apps and Web sites captivate users from the moment they sign up, while users quickly forget others? The reason is effective user onboarding. You can use your understanding of the human mind to improve user retention and product adoption.

The magic behind compelling user-onboarding experiences is no accident; it’s the result of meticulous design strategies that tap into the underlying principles of human behavior. By understanding and harnessing people’s cognitive biases—those inherent quirks in our decision-making processes—developers and designers can craft experiences that resonate deeply with users.

In this article, I’ll delve into the science of user engagement, revealing how the astute application of psychological insights can elevate a digital product from being routinely functional to becoming an essential part of users’ daily lives. We’ll discover the secrets of creating user-onboarding processes that not only captivate but also foster a connection that users find hard to let go, which marks the transition from casual browsing to committed usage. Read More

What does the future hold for advertising embedded in digital experiences? Making advertising part of your digital product’s or property’s business model has always been a challenging balancing act. Creators of digital experiences need to make money. Selling ad space within a product or Web site helps you to earn money—and, generally speaking, the more traffic you get, the more you can leverage advertising as a business model. (Although high-quality traffic can be more important than just the amount of traffic, depending on the advertising model you choose.)

Of course, on the flip side, users rarely want to see advertising—for several key reasons:

• Advertising often lacks originality or creativity.
• Advertising often lacks relevance.
• Advertising takes up space that users would generally prefer be dedicated to content and clutters up the visible digital canvas. Read More

For an experienced professional who, like me, transitioned from marketing to User Experience, user onboarding is one of the most crucial aspects of both Customer Experience (CX) and User Experience. A well-designed user-onboarding process helps users understand a product’s value proposition, learn how to use it effectively, and achieve their desired outcomes quickly and easily. This leads to a positive customer experience because users feel confident and successful in using the product. Plus, a good onboarding process can help to improve a product’s user experience by identifying and addressing any painpoints or usability issues that people may experience.

Therefore, it’s strange to see how onboarding remains an afterthought for most product or UX teams. Working on the HSBC’s world-class account-opening team, focusing on onboarding, opened up new horizons for my thinking about crafting compelling user onboarding experiences and what this means for product teams, customers, and users. I had not previously thought that an onboarding experience could provide a strategic lever for the success of a digital product and play a key role in customer adoption as well as retention. Read More