Why your iOS app needs onboarding
Onboarding allows the user to become familiar with your app before they use any of it’s features. This is a great opportunity to show the user all of the great things your app can provide them with.
“The onboarding process is a user’s first impression of your app, and when designed correctly, increases the likelihood of successful adoption”- Megan Marrs
Here are a few tips on designing your app’s onboarding experience:
State the need of your app
A few questions that your users might have when first downloading your app are “Why do I need this app?” or “How can this app improve my daily life?”. Users are looking for the answers to these questions, and if they can’t find these answers they might delete your app after a short amount of time.
To solve this you might want to let the users know straight away of the value that your app provides them with, and why your app is different from all of the other apps out there. You have to reinforce to the user that they made the right decision by downloading your app.
Show your most important features
A user sometimes wanders into your app not knowing the main features, this may cause them to miss out on some of the best things your app can provide them with.
Therefore a good thing to do, is to show the user the most important features of your app as well as what they will be able to do with these features.
This will provide the user with a better understanding of the activities in which they will be able to engage in. I guarantee you that the users will be quite grateful of this, mostly because you just saved them quite a hassle of them trying to figure everything out on their own.
Show how to use the features
Now the user knows of your main features, but how do they access these features one might ask? 🤔🤔
If you let your user know of your most important features, it’s also relevant to tell them how they can access and use these features. Perhaps tell them where these features are located, and a explain the basics on interacting with them.
Ask the user for permissions
Your app might require the user to grant it access to certain information and features so that it can access and use them. Some of these might include the following:
- Microphone 🎤
- Camera 📸
- Contacts 📚
- Push Notifications 🚨
- Location Services 🗺
Most users will not want to give access to this information, they might feel insecure about it. Therefore you have to explain to them why you need this information and how you will use it.
Most times you only have one opportunity to get the user to grant you permission into using their information through your app. If they don’t allow access here, then they will have to go to system settings and allow permission through there.
An onboarding allows you to convince users to grant you access to their information. 🔓
In conclusion
There is a lot of information that you have to provide the user during the onboarding, but always remember to keep it short. New users have a very small attention span, you must design your onboarding with this in mind.
New users want to use the features on your app not sit through a five minute onboarding. Make it a quick experience that provides them with value and remember to keep it clean and visually appealing. This will be your app’s first impression, make it as enjoyable as possible.
I have created a great framework named SwiftyOnboard to create beautiful onboarding experiences for iOS, you can check it out here:
One last thing…
This was my first article if you liked it, click the 💚 below. I would also love to know your thoughts on it, so feel free to leave a comment!
