Overview
Bluescape is a whiteboard, visual collaboration startup that provides a platform for users to collaboratively innovate, generate, and refine ideas within a visual workspace.
Role
Product Designer — 2021-2023
I oversaw the entire project lifecycle, including
competitive analyses, user interviews, and
facilitating user tests, resulting in enhanced UX/UI
and improved business results. Insights gathered
through close collaboration with researchers,
developers, and PMs continuously guided my design
concepts, wireframes, prototypes, and final designs.
Objective
To effectively facilitate first-time users’ onboarding process while minimizing learning curves.
Results
By focusing on steady improvement, we successfully introduced an onboarding experience, continually refining it to increase user satisfaction, double retention rates, and raise conversion rates by 25%.
Discover
Based on our product evaluations and user feedback, we learned that new users were experiencing low confidence levels during the initial stages of the onboarding process.
Key Insights
My Observations
1. People struggled with learning Bluescape
Upon signing up, users found themselves in an empty workspace, without a clear indication of what to do next.
2. ...and formed a negative first impression
People quickly felt overwhelmed by the lack of guidance.
The dark background created a perception of difficulty,
which in turn contributed to reduced user engagement.
User Journey Map
To gain a deeper understanding of our users, their pain points, and discover opportunities, I facilitated workshops with stakeholders to develop a user journey map.
Personas
Through continuous research and stakeholder collaboration, I identified three primary user roles, along with their respective goals and preferences.
Hypothesis
We hypothesized that it was essential to reduce the learning curve for first-time users. By implementing targeted solutions catered to 3 primary personas, we believed we could improve retention rates among new users.
Explorations
I crafted a series of exploratory designs, with a clear objective of inspiring users to take that crucial first step. Simplicity, ease of use, and ease of implementation were particularly important during this stage of development.
The explorations helped our team choose the optimal path forward for a successful implementation.
Deliver
I tailored the onboarding experience to cater to users’ specific needs, derived from continuous research and user feedback. I particularly focused on the welcome dialog, targeting our main user personas by offering a variety of immediate actions that aligned with their unique requirements.
Welcome screen
Each user requirement demanded a distinct onboarding solution, which needed to be created from scratch. The following user flow illustrates the multiple onboarding paths users could traverse.
Onboarding user flow
Tooltips were especially important in guiding new users with less familiar interactions.
Wireframes describing the UI and verbiage for tooltips
What we learned
Insights Gained
Following the launch of the initial Onboarding process, users’ perception of Bluescape witnessed a substantial increase, with an average rating of 7.5 (out of 10) for the overall onboarding experience.
Users commented:
Although the product’s perception improved, there remained a need to boost user engagement. User studies and feedback unveiled the following key areas requiring attention:
Tooltips
While tooltips were helpful, they did not provide sufficient guidance for users to feel confident using Bluescape.
Learn the basics
The ‘Learn the basics’ template offered good guidance; however, it demanded too much effort from users.
Invite
Users didn’t find it obvious how to initiate an invitation for others to join Bluescape.
Solution
By focusing on user efficiency, I developed an engaging interactive tour designed to guide users while clearly showcasing Bluescape’s value proposition.
Furthermore, I integrated an invitation option directly within the Welcome dialog, streamlining the process of inviting others.
To elevate the user experience, I also optimized the user interface, making the option to invite others more discoverable and user-friendly.
The following image illustrates various invite iterations:
Results
By continually improving the onboarding experience, we successfully facilitated users’ grasp of Bluescape’s features, enabling them to achieve their goals.
Through strategic emphasis of key features, we observed a 25% increase in retention and conversion rates, highlighting the positive impact of a well-designed onboarding process on user engagement and success.