Should you invest time and resources in app onboarding?

If you’re considering our app business opportunity, you may well already have some experience as an entrepreneur or, within a marketing or customer-facing role in a previous job. That means you’ll probably have come across the term onboarding. It’s something lots of businesses do – either when they win a new client or, sign up for a new service and want to get to grips with its functions.

As someone who is running or thinking of running a mobile app development business, it’s important to look at onboarding from an app user’s perspective. This is an often overlooked part of app development but one that can see your creations retain users and convert fans into advocates for your app much more easily than would otherwise be the case.

So, what is app onboarding?

Put simply, app onboarding is like a mini tutorial or introduction to your app, which a new user will see when they first download it. This will usually take the form of a series of screens which highlight key features and functions of the app.

What are the benefits?

When you include an app onboarding process with your app design, both you and the app user can benefit.

The app user gets a guided intro to the app, which subsequently makes it easier to use. This also ensures a clear understanding of all features and functionality.

From the app developer perspective, onboarding can be used to collect useful information about the user, so the app experience can be tailored to their preferences. A food app for example may ask the user during the onboarding stage if they have any food allergies, are vegan or vegetarian. With this information, the recipes displayed can then be tailored to that user’s specific dietary preference.

Using onboarding to retain more users

Not all users will immediately get to grips with your app. They may fail to connect with us or take a quick look and lose interest. A great onboarding process can help to hook that user and keep them connected and engaged with your app after the initial download. It’s an opportunity to reinforce the value of the app and highlight useful or important features. If your app is packed with features, the onboarding process also makes the user orient themselves more quickly in the interface – which means they are more likely to come back and use it and less likely to grow frustrated and delete it.