Tips to Keep in Mind Before Building Your First Userpilot Flow

Building your first Userpilot flow can be a bit overwhelming at first. Here are some user onboarding key tips to keep in mind.

1. Separate flows based on page

It might be super tempting at first to try and clutter all your onboarding into one long flow that covers everything.

This is actually bad practice for a couple of reasons.

First, users are extremely unlikely to finish the whole onboarding flow all at once. No user is willing to go over 10 or 15 step onboarding.

Second of all, and most importantly, a specific flow should have a clear goal in mind. So it would be counterproductive to have a long flow that covers many topics.

Therefore, it's always better to separate flows. This will help users see the right tip in the right situation instead of all at once.

One of the best ways to do this is to keep different pages (URLs) in mind as your building. It's much better to have separate flows for different URLs. This way, if a user skips a certain flow, they'll still have other ones that are relevant to the page they are in.

2. Keep flows short and simple (2-4 steps at max)

Flows with many steps (or page changes) are more prone to breaking.

This is why it's always better to keep flows focused on driving a specific goal without many steps or page changes.

Keeping flows short will also increase completion rates and keep users focused on the task at hand.

3. Build each flow with a specific goal in mind

It's a good practice to write down the specific goal you want to achieve before starting to build your flow.

Flows that are built without a clear goal in mind tend to confuse users and present various information that the user cannot relate to.

Instead, start building the flow with a specific goal or action in mind. This will help you make it short and to the point based on the segment you are targeting or the page (URL).

4. Have a clear audience/event for each flow

Segmenting your users based on customer properties and custom events can be a rewarding practice that will help you stay relevant as the user goes through the product journey, this is a great way of personalizing the user onboarding flow.

If you try to use a generic onboarding flow for each of these user personas, then you aren’t going to help anyone. For example, it wouldn't make much sense to target your new signups with a flow to push a secondary (less important) feature. Instead, it would be more relevant to them to see a tip on a key feature in a certain URL.

5. Utilize contextual onboarding flows

Non-contextual onboarding that forces the user to scroll through several screens, each explaining a different feature doesn't actually work; this adds more friction to your onboarding and no one actually remembers all of the information.

Utilize your flows by sending the right message to the right user at the right time resulting in useful contextual onboarding.

• The right message is one that adds context or provides instructions that are relevant to what your user is trying to do.
• The right user means that your onboarding is tailored to the appropriate segment.
• The right time means that you send a message when it makes sense to do so. In other words, the context is right.

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