User onboarding

User onboarding is the process of helping people understand a product and complete their first useful actions in it. In mobile apps, onboarding can extend beyond the first session, covering necessary setup and guidance when users encounter unfamiliar features. A grocery app, for example, might help someone check delivery availability, place an order, and learn where to track it.

Purpose of User Onboarding

The purpose of onboarding is to help users reach activation, a milestone indicating that they have experienced the product’s value. A language-learning app might define this as finishing a first lesson, while a retailer might choose a completed first order. Keep onboarding completion and activation separate in your reporting: finishing every tutorial screen does not establish that someone completed the task those screens explain.

What’s Included in User Onboarding?

Necessary Setup

Keep initial setup focused on what users need to complete their next task. Baymard’s March 2025 review of post-checkout experiences recommends offering account creation after checkout and reports that 57% of benchmarked sites failed to explain the benefits of creating an account. For a retail app supporting guest purchases, this suggests letting shoppers order first, then offering an account with a clear explanation of how it helps them track or repeat purchases.

Goal-Based Personalization

Ask for preferences when the answer changes what the user sees next. McKinsey’s analysis of personalized marketing recommends adapting communication to customer preferences and lifecycle stages. Applied to onboarding, a fitness app could ask whether someone wants to start running or follow home workouts, then open an appropriate first session and leave out instructions for the other activity.

Guidance and Error Recovery

Explain unfamiliar tasks where users perform them, including how to continue when something fails. Nielsen Norman Group’s guidance on smart-device onboarding recommends visual instructions supported by text, clear progress feedback, and retries from the point of failure. In a connected-device app, this means showing which button to press, explaining the expected response, and letting users retry a failed connection without repeating completed setup steps.

User Onboarding in Mobile Apps

In-app Stories can explain an unfamiliar feature using the screens users will encounter, followed by a button that opens the task. In InAppStory’s telecom case study, onboarding Stories recorded a 32.61% reading rate and an 11.57% click-through rate. These figures describe interaction with the content; teams would need completed-setup data to establish how many readers activated the feature.

In-app messages provide guidance at specific steps: a bottom sheet might explain a delivery option, a pop-up could prompt users to save their preferences, and a full-screen message can introduce a setup sequence. Give each message a clear next action and keep optional explanations dismissible. A banner can keep “Finish setup” available during later sessions without repeatedly opening the same overlay.

In-app games can make an onboarding task interactive when the activity teaches something users need. A retailer could offer an optional challenge that introduces loyalty benefits and ends at the reward-redemption screen. Measure whether participants subsequently use those benefits, and avoid making unrelated gameplay a requirement for accessing the app.

Push notifications can bring users back to unfinished onboarding after they leave the app. For example, a reminder could open an incomplete saved plan, with an in-app message explaining the remaining step. Stop the reminder when the task is complete and apply message frequency rules to the prompts displayed inside the app.

How to Measure User Onboarding

Define the action, audience, and observation window before calculating activation rate. For a first-order flow, this could be the percentage of new users who complete an order within seven days of their first app open, counting each person once and including only users who have had the full observation window. Also track time to the first order and drop-off between steps to locate delays that the overall conversion rate cannot explain.

Measure engagement and retention after onboarding using cohorts: groups of users who started during the same period. Compare cohorts at the same age, and examine repeat core actions alongside Story views or notification opens to understand whether communication led to continued product use.

For revenue-based lifetime value (LTV), track the revenue each cohort produces per acquired user as it ages. When evaluating onboarding changes, compare revenue per user over equal observation windows and distinguish that observed revenue from a forecast of total lifetime value.

Best Practices for User Onboarding

Let users skip optional explanations and find them again from the relevant feature. Mixpanel’s onboarding guide recommends dismissible tips and using funnel analysis to identify where people drop out. Before adding another welcome message, inspect the weakest step: users abandoning an address form may need clearer field instructions or fewer required inputs, not another introduction to the app.

Test changes against a specific problem and outcome. For example, compare two explanations at an abandoned setup step, keeping the audience and subsequent flow consistent, then assess completed actions and later retention. Treat higher message clicks as an intermediate result until the product data shows that more users completed the task and continued using the app.