Onboarding tour and guidelines

Scenario

I was tasked to hone the microcopy for a web app’s new onboarding tour and to produce guidelines for future onboarding tours and widgets. The guidelines would describe the overlay’s basic structure and functionality to engineers, help engineers and product designers create future tours for other markets as the product scales, and ultimately help customers learn how to use the app. 

Process

I worked with engineering and product design to define the scope and functionality of the onboarding tour and widget. We identified the types of information and functionality that people need in the tour (heading, description, progress indicator, forward navigation, and escape navigation) and in the widget (links to help topics and videos). Through a couple write-and-review iterations with stakeholders, I shaped the tour's messaging to be clear, concise, and on brand. I also produced and delivered complete guidelines that describe how to build every element in the overlay.

Results

The guidelines were well received. The UX team updated its prototype based on the guidelines, and the guidelines were used by engineers to create the onboarding tour for the app. In the future, engineers in all markets will use these guidelines to create onboarding tours with a consistent experience across products.