Engaging new users: Free samples

2

In the first part of this series, I shared how guided interaction introduces users to the authentic context of your product with just the right amount of education to ensure they find success.  Today, we investigate how the 2nd of the 3 pillars of better onboarding, the use of free samples, gets those new customers using your product in the first place.  

There are 3 overarching best practices when it comes to engaging and educating new users:

  1. Guided interaction
  2. Free samples
  3. Personal focus

Continue reading →

Engaging new users: Guided interaction

2

In the past I’ve covered patterns and anti-patterns for onboarding new users and principles for first time user experiences.  In this post and the two that will follow, I’ll be digging into each of the 3 ways we can better engage new users:

  1. Guided interaction
  2. Free samples
  3. Personal focus

Today’s post is focused on guided interaction. So let’s jump into what it means, discover patterns for making guided interaction a reality and see a few examples.

Continue reading →

Free Bill Cipher jack-o-lantern stencils inspired by Gravity Falls

+

Sometimes I like to take a step back from UX design and do graphic illustration work. Lately I’ve been enjoying Gravity Falls, a TV show with A+ storytelling that engages the audience by hiding codes hidden in each episode.  So with Halloween approaching, I’ve created free jack-o-lantern stencils for one of the show’s most iconic characters, Bill Cipher.  I’ve got a few options for Bill, so get ready for a rundown after the break.

BillAlone

Continue reading →

4 user states to consider in your onboarding design process

+

If you’ve been following my first time UX work, you know I advocate the creation of onboarding experiences that provide guided interaction, free samples and a personal focus. The value of this educational effort doesn’t stop at new customers. When we build onboarding experiences with other user states in mind, we can create a versatile platform for continued education and engagement.  This makes it easier to convince your team to invest in onboarding, and beyond.

Continue reading →

Game of Thrones-Inspired Halloween Illustration

+

Last year I started playing with the Procreate app for iPad. My first sketch was inspired by Game of Thrones, showing key characters dressed up for Halloween as their house sigils and trick-or-treating at the home of a very special man.

This year, I cleaned up the sketch and decided to share it as a free illustration for your Halloween enjoyment. Read on for a full-size version you can print or use as a wallpaper!

Continue reading →

New users matter too!

+

I recently gave a talk about designing better first time user experiences for mobile apps, with examples gleaned from my collection of first time user experiences.

Slideshare via Krystal Higgins

In this presentation and in my other work, I stress how we need to move from a mode of telling new users about our value proposition, to a mode of letting users experience it for themselves. We want to show interact, not tell.

Here are 3 ways we can engage new users and get them interacting early:

Continue reading →

What’s your coaching cadence?

1

In a recent presentation, I discussed the role that guided interaction and coaching can play in onboarding new users to a product. Playthroughs and user-guided tutorials are some examples of guided interaction. Guided interaction allows users to start playing with a new product quickly in an authentic context (instead of wading through abstracted coachmarks, instructions or intro tours), but also gives them enough coaching so that they’ll be motivated by an early success.

To help teams explore the right cadence of guided interaction for their product’s new user experience, I created a template to help with judging that interaction between a product and a new user. I’ve been calling it the coaching cadence worksheet. This can be used to audit an existing experience, or to explore variations for a revision or completely new first time ux. The worksheet follows.

UX Australia Sketchnotes: “The One-Way Door”

+

At UX Australia, customer strategist Marie-Claire Grady kicked off her 10-minute talk “The One-Way Door to CX-Committed Executives” with a story about her grandmother. Her grandmother was a shopowner, and she made a commitment to walk through the front door every day so she could see of her shop what her customers would see of her shop. As Marie-Claire continues her presentation, this concept of needing executives to experience things exactly how their customers experience things becomes the key to improving any product’s or service’s experience.

UX Australia Sketchnotes: “Describing the Elephant”

+
Eric Reiss gave a rousing second day presentation at UX Australia 2014, complete with a performance of Australia’s “Waltzing Matilda.” In his talk “Describing the Elephant,” Reiss encouraged us to recognize that UX cannot be managed by a single person, and needs to be considered a collaborative, shared discipline. My sketchnotes follow.

Continue reading →

UX Australia Sketchnotes: “Design at Scale”

+
GE design leader Greg Petroff kicked off UX Australia 2014 with an inspiring keynote. While he touched on the impact of his work with GE’s design system, he also spoke passionately about how the survival of design depends on its democratization. My sketchnotes from the keynote follow.

Continue reading →