ninehills/onboard

MANDATORY PREPARATION

Invoke /frontend-design — it contains design principles, anti-patterns, and the Context Gathering Protocol. Follow the protocol before proceeding — if no design context exists yet, you MUST run /teach-impeccable first. Additionally gather: the "aha moment" you want users to reach, and users' experience level.

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Create or improve onboarding experiences that help users understand, adopt, and succeed with the product quickly.

Assess Onboarding Needs

Understand what users need to learn and why:

1. Identify the challenge:

   • What are users trying to accomplish?
   • What's confusing or unclear about current experience?
   • Where do users get stuck or drop off?
   • What's the "aha moment" we want users to reach?

2. Understand the users:

   • What's their experience level? (Beginners, power users, mixed?)
   • What's their motivation? (Excited and exploring? Required by work?)
   • What's their time commitment? (5 minutes? 30 minutes?)
   • What alternatives do they know? (Coming from competitor? New to category?)

3. Define success:

   • What's the minimum users need to learn to be successful?
   • What's the key action we want them to take? (First project? First invite?)
   • How do we know onboarding worked? (Completion rate? Time to value?)

CRITICAL: Onboarding should get users to value as quickly as possible, not teach everything possible.

Onboarding Principles

Follow these core principles:

Show, Don't Tell

• Demonstrate with working examples, not just descriptions
• Provide real functionality in onboarding, not separate tutorial mode
• Use progressive disclosure - teach one thing at a time

Make It Optional (When Possible)

• Let experienced users skip onboarding
• Don't block access to product
• Provide "Skip" or "I'll explore on my own" options

Time to Value

• Get users to their "aha moment" ASAP
• Front-load most important concepts
• Teach 20% that delivers 80% of value
• Save advanced features for contextual discovery

Context Over Ceremony

• Teach features when users need them, not upfront
• Empty states are onboarding opportunities
• Tooltips and hints at point of use

Respect User Intelligence

• Don't patronize or over-explain
• Be concise and clear
• Assume users can figure out standard patterns

Design Onboarding Experiences

Create appropriate onboarding for the context:

Initial Product Onboarding

Welcome Screen:

• Clear value proposition (what is this product?)
• What users will learn/accomplish
• Time estimate (honest about commitment)
• Option to skip (for experienced users)

Account Setup:

• Minimal required information (collect more later)
• Explain why you're asking for each piece of information
• Smart defaults where possible
• Social login when appropriate

Core Concept Introduction:

• Introduce 1-3 core concepts (not everything)
• Use simple language and examples
• Interactive when possible (do, don't just read)
• Progress indication (step 1 of 3)

First Success:

• Guide users to accomplish something real
• Pre-populated examples or templates
• Celebrate completion (but don't overdo it)
• Clear next steps

Feature Discovery & Adoption

Empty States: Instead of blank space, show:

• What will appear here (description + screenshot/illustration)
• Why it's valuable
• Clear CTA to create first item
• Example or template option

Example:

No projects yet
Projects help you organize your work and collaborate with your team.
[Create your first project] or [Start from template]

Contextual Tooltips:

• Appear at relevant moment (first time user sees feature)
• Point directly at relevant UI element
• Brief explanation + benefit
• Dismissable (with "Don't show again" option)
• Optional "Learn more" link

Feature Announcements:

• Highlight new features when they're released
• Show what's new and why it matters
• Let users try immediately
• Dismissable

Progressive Onboarding:

• Teach features when users encounter them
• Badges or indicators on new/unused features
• Unlock complexity gradually (don't show all options immediately)

Guided Tours & Walkthroughs

When to use:

• Complex interfaces with many features
• Significant changes to existing product
• Industry-specific tools needing domain knowledge

How to design:

• Spotlight specific UI elements (dim rest of page)
• Keep steps short (3-7 steps max per tour)
• Allow users to click through tour freely
• Include "Skip tour" option
• Make replayable (help menu)

Best practices:

• Interactive > passive (let users click real buttons)
• Focus on workflow, not features ("Create a project" not "This is the project button")
• Provide sample data so actions work

Interactive Tutorials

When to use:

• Users need hands-on practice
• Concepts are complex or unfamiliar
• High stakes (better to practice in safe environment)

How to design:

• Sandbox environment with sample data
• Clear objectives ("Create a chart showing sales by region")
• Step-by-step guidance
• Validation (confirm they did it right)
• Graduation moment (you're ready!)

Documentation & Help

In-product help:

• Contextual help links throughout interface
• Keyboard shortcut reference
• Search-able help center
• Video tutorials for complex workflows

Help patterns:

• ? icon near complex features
• "Learn more" links in tooltips
• Keyboard shortcut hints (⌘K shown on search box)

Empty State Design

Every empty state needs:

What Will Be Here

"Your recent projects will appear here"

Why It Matters

"Projects help you organize your work and collaborate with your team"

How to Get Started

[Create project] or [Import from template]

Visual Interest

Illustration or icon (not just text on blank page)

Contextual Help

"Need help getting started? [Watch 2-min tutorial]"

Empty state types:

• First use: Never used this feature (emphasize value, provide template)
• User cleared: Intentionally deleted everything (light touch, easy to recreate)
• No results: Search or filter returned nothing (suggest different query, clear filters)
• No permissions: Can't access (explain why, how to get access)
• Error state: Failed to load (explain what happened, retry option)

Implementation Patterns

Technical approaches:

Tooltip libraries: Tippy.js, Popper.js Tour libraries: Intro.js, Shepherd.js, React Joyride Modal patterns: Focus trap, backdrop, ESC to close Progress tracking: LocalStorage for "seen" states Analytics: Track completion, drop-off points

Storage patterns:

// Track which onboarding steps user has seen
localStorage.setItem('onboarding-completed', 'true');
localStorage.setItem('feature-tooltip-seen-reports', 'true');

IMPORTANT: Don't show same onboarding twice (annoying). Track completion and respect dismissals.

NEVER:

• Force users through long onboarding before they can use product
• Patronize users with obvious explanations
• Show same tooltip repeatedly (respect dismissals)
• Block all UI during tour (let users explore)
• Create separate tutorial mode disconnected from real product
• Overwhelm with information upfront (progressive disclosure!)
• Hide "Skip" or make it hard to find
• Forget about returning users (don't show initial onboarding again)

Verify Onboarding Quality

Test with real users:

• Time to completion: Can users complete onboarding quickly?
• Comprehension: Do users understand after completing?
• Action: Do users take desired next step?
• Skip rate: Are too many users skipping? (Maybe it's too long/not valuable)
• Completion rate: Are users completing? (If low, simplify)
• Time to value: How long until users get first value?

Remember: You're a product educator with excellent teaching instincts. Get users to their "aha moment" as quickly as possible. Teach the essential, make it contextual, respect user time and intelligence.