Creating an onboarding flow for a team productivity platform
In July 2020, Wattle, a remote team-building startup was building an MVP for a Slack integration app/platform. I worked in tandem with the founder to define and build the onboarding experience. I created the user flows, wireframes, and conducted usability testing sessions.
Understanding the Problem
With Covid-19, the need for workspace interaction among employees catapulted. With no yearly outings or a virtual water-cooler space for workers to bond, Wattle wanted to create a daily space for fun while enriching the workers’ data to help managers to see if there are silos within the org.
Everything needed to be built. Since the interviews that tested the Proof of Concept went well, we thought it a good idea to create an onboarding flow.
Aside from the sign-up flow, the founder had a strong hypothesis that each joining teams will benefit from co-creating their team values and norms. Given the hypothesis, I created a design brief listing the requirements.
User Persona & User Flows
Based on the qualitative interviews the founder had conducted, I created a manager and team member user personas to guide us as we worked towards creating our onboarding flow.
I went through several iterations, trying to include only the essential steps. Once approved, I turned them into wireframes and iterated upon the design.
It was a complex challenge to get a team to asynchronously vote what their team values are. This being the main hypothesis to test out, the founder and I worked together to define the team norm process.
💡User Testing Key Insights
The core engagement loops aren’t readily available to understand the value of the product.
The onboarding feels too long.
Open-ended norms are difficult to come up with.
The norms setting feature is nice but not essential for them especially when the onboarding.
It’s not clear that the daily interaction will be short and sweet. Something that builds with time.
The birthday, year should be optional or removed.
Likes the ability to see people’s similarities and diversities.
“Ask and Offer” is a neat way to mentor and learn within the team.
🔑 Key Actions to User Insights
Create core engagement loops.
The core features haven’t been established nor developed. It may have been more useful to leave the onboarding flow until the end and test the other features viability from a higher level.Also, it should be made obvious that this product only takes up 5-10 minutes of the workday —a replacement for the water-cooler talk that isn’t possible during remote work.
I shortened the onboarding by getting rid of half of the questions.
The whole purpose of Wattle is to engage and build team trust through daily interactions and activities. As teams use Wattle, their responses will enrich their profiles so it is unnecessary to fill in many personal questions at the beginning.Removed “set up the team norm” feature from the onboarding flow.
The general feedback was it’s useful to set team norms all together. However, it’s not so essential that should be part of core experience. We think it’d be better to provide a tool so teams can diagnose the team’s status and give them suggestions as to what activities they can do to strengthen the weak areas.
Changes in the Wireframes
The wireframes went through several changes, some subtle and some substantial. In the space below, I’ll highlight these updates.
Contextualizing the key features this product without images, GIFs, or videos was difficult since no features have been decided or built yet. Considering this limitation, I included screenshots and changed the wording to demonstrate this product is intended for short daily interaction.
The usability feedback showed the onboarding should be shorter. The blue screens are omitted and green one added. Wattle’s goal is to create spontaneous team interactions using questions and games on their work communication portal. As team members interact and respond their profiles will naturally become richer without answering them at the beginning.
As highlighted in blue box, the idea of a Parking Lot is important where where controversial values are set aside to be discussed. However, it created more confusion than value. Making the information discoverable and not obvious may help with the unnecessary cognitive overload. In the next iteration, I made the Parking Lot less prominent and hideable.
Updated Screens Using the Testing Feedback
The phrases that show the shortness of the daily interaction has been added to provide clearer expectation of the product-user interaction.
From 7 screens to 4, I removed the less important information when filling out the personal profile.
By inviting the team members to engage with the platform, it would introduce them to Wattle and provide context as to what this app is before integrating Slack or work communication platform.
Team Norms Setting Feature
Although the user feedback showed this feature wasn’t a desirable part of the onboarding process, it can be one of the suggested tools when they’d like to establish team norms.
MVP Recommendations
The user testing showed that our hypothesis of creating an onboarding flow and team norm setting was not as useful as we had hoped. In fact, we learned it would have been more impactful to develop and test feature ideas first.
As a final recommendation, I categorized the features according to how it may benefit the users. I examined the various feature ideas from human’s behavioral perspective.
The success of team building activities depend on their desire to improve and motivation to interact. How can we motivate individuals to want to build trust and engage in team building activities?
Edward Deci, a psychologist coined the idea, Self Determination Theory, which considers human’s innate psychological tendencies and needs based on Autonomy, Competency, and Relatedness. Based on the assumption that the basic human needs derive from these three social factors, I categorized and prioritized Wattle’s MVP features to see which ones are essential in assisting team building.
Business Impact
Saved time and money on unnecessary production by using lean design methodology to quickly test the hypothesis.
Helped refine the MVP for future investors and collaborations.
Reflections
I’ve learned a lot of valuable skills while working with the startup. The key takeaways include:
Don’t start with an onboarding if the core features haven’t been established
It’s really hard to provide the value of a product when it the features hasn’t been decided on or developed. When I consult in the future, I will be sure to push towards creating the MVP first and create the onboarding as the final step.Onboarding should be short and simple
Get to the core of the product ASAP by providing shorter options and keeping the onboarding flow short.
Prioritize communication, adaptability and open mindedness
The best way to a positive collaboration is to be proactive and open with your communication.