Success states work best for achievements that are meaningful from a user's point of view—this way you're not celebrating their activity within the product, you're celebrating their taking another step towards a better version of themselves.
“User onboarding is the process of increasing the likelihood that new users become successful when adopting your product.”
The faster your product can show users that this is where they can find a path to a better version of themselves, the faster they integrate your product into their lives. This is why it's worth paying attention to how you order the steps in your onboarding flow. When you front-load it with user value, it can pay major dividends.
A rule of thumb that's proved useful in the past is this simple question: is the user actually better off for having made it through the onboarding flow?
And very often, I try my best to steer people toward asking questions more like these instead: What are the different reasons that drive people to sign up for our app? Which early user actions most strongly correlate with long-term retention? What has to happen for people to feel like they've made progress in their lives outside of our product? In other words, I very often see people jumping straight into "getting users to do stuff" phase without first evaluating what "the stuff we get users to do" should even be in the first place.
From the user's perspective, it's a drag to have to "explore features" by playing tooltip tour whack-a-mole and then not even winding up anywhere meaningful at the end of it. And from the business' perspective... well, let's just say that there are more effective retention strategies than getting people to do a bunch of things that they largely find relatively meaningless.
In that same way, you want to make sure you're focusing on helping users make progress in something that they actually value, rather than just clicking around because you told them to.
While many companies love to trick out their emails with three-column layouts and responsive masthead graphics, I don't go for that at all. I'm not creating emails to be admired on a gallery wall; I'm creating emails that encourage people to do something. When it comes to motivational content, give me "clear and concise" over "impressively ornate" every. day. of. the. week.
She went on to explain that the point is to “bring out your natural beauty,” not to draw attention to the makeup itself. Software is like makeup in that way: you only notice it when it’s messed up. As a designer, I find it odd that once a product team has noticed that the interface is messing up, there seems to be a very strong tendency (especially during user onboarding) to then add even MORE “makeup” on top:
“More interface” does not fix “bad interface”… it amplifies it.
Success states have become synonymous with celebration, particularly in user onboarding. But the fact is that guiding a user through a complicated flow of actions with positive feedback is more than celebrating a milestone. It's expanding the first conversation that users have with your product.
In many workflows, a screen makes a demand of the user and when the user complies, the product moves on like nothing even happened. Taking a beat to verify that all is well can give the user 1) mental closure and 2) feedback that the product is listening and reacting.
Make them visual (confirmation and green go great together!) And immediate (don't wait until a user has finished filling out a form to let them know there's more password work to do.) Remember that it's a conversation (your user communicates in interactions, your product responds in success states)
A well-timed pat on the back can simply feel good to receive, especially when it's for a meaningful accomplishment. These success states are good ol' fashioned celebrations of progress.
Save encouragement states for milestones. Empty praise usually erodes motivation instead of amplifying it. You can use success states to do more than one thing at a time: combine "encouragement" and "signpost" success states to celebrate users and steer them towards a follow-on activity.
Momentum is a state of mind in which you feel that things are unstoppably going your way. Psychologists actually refer to it as a power -- when athletes feel it they perform better, when gamblers feel it they take bigger risks, and when you feel it doing household chores, psychologists Iso-Ahola and Dotson have observed, your home sparkles a little more. Momentum is built in wins. At least two in a row. Two consecutive wins, and you're on a "hot streak": the task you're performing suddenly becomes easier and smoother.
The problem is that losing momentum feels terrible and is even worse for performance than no momentum. A task that the user has to "restart" is more demanding and difficult. And oscillating between losing and gaining momentum exponentially increases frustration. The idea, in essence, is simple: success breeds success — so if you want to set users up for success — get them there fast and keep the wins coming. If 10 steps make up your onboarding flow, how many quick wins are you giving users in the first five? Or the first three? How many can you cut out? How many can you postpone?
If the user could see what their future would be like on the other side of your onboarding before they started signing up, would they want to switch places with that future self?
Activity and achievement are two different things. User actions only add value if they bring the user closer to what they're seeking. Put those steps first, and let their momentum carry the rest.
The difference between simplicity and ease Is difficulty a momentum killer? No. Maybe users have to do something difficult to find value, that might just be the nature of the problem you’re solving. The funny thing is it's difficulty that makes achievement feel good, so a challenging onboarding flow is okay!
The principle of gradual engagement suggests postponing registration or form filling to create a low barrier of entry into your product. Front-loading user value is coupling a low barrier for entry with an ordering of onboarding steps that builds momentum.
When you "prime" users for an ask, you're explaining two things: why you're asking for something and how responding will benefit them. Both have strategic underpinnings: Communicating why you need the access directs the user's attention to what you need from them to deliver value, building trust. Focusing on the benefit reminds them they signed up to receive that value, building motivation.
Asking for permission breaks up the onboarding flow. The more natural the ask, the less jarring it is.
Don't ask for permission to use the camera until you need to use it, in other words. If you wait to ask for access to the camera when the user is all set to take a picture, they won't think twice about giving it the go-ahead.
For UI elements, being understood beats being sophisticated every time!
Success states work best for achievements that are meaningful from a user's point of view—this way you're not celebrating their activity within the product, you're celebrating their taking another step towards a better version of themselves.
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