User Onboarding
The Account portal leads the customer through a post-purchase experience. I was a part of the product team that helps the personas of a software administrator and an individual user to assign seats, download software and make informed decisions about subscription renewal. We created product management features, usage notifications, and subscription pages with a path to renewal that empowered users to self-serve and reduced support cases. Onboarding, as the first step in the journey, sets the ground for a successful customer lifecycle.
Problem
Product onboarding frequently came up as a painpoint in user research. The existing Onboarding tile on the Account Dashboard was getting only 22% engagement.
“After purchasing software I’m confused about where to go to assign it to teams, download it and install it.”
Goals
As a customer I want to be able to easily set up my newly purchased subscriptions.
As a business we want to create a personalized onboarding feature that guides users through key post-purchase actions and to weave it into the Account architecture in the way that ensures high findability.
My role
Participated in design workshops and created wireframes of user flows and interactions.
Validated design with users and iterated on the use of components to make interactions intuitive.
Handed off high-fidelity mockups to engineering and assisted them with additional design details during implementation.
Conducted pre-launch QA and identified defects.
Collaborators: Product Managers, Researchers, engineering.
Process: Module 1 - Assigning software to teams
Goals:
- show the user their purchase list
- allow them to assign the software to teams
- direct them to where they can assign seats to individual users
User Research:
We asked software admins about their post-purchase workflow and we identified 2 scenarios.
“I don’t always have time to set it up right away. When I go back to my account I want to know how to do it.”
“After a purchase I go to the confirmation email and follow the link to set it up.”
User flow:
The team agreed that 2 user flows needed to be addressed.
1 – Implementation in the Account Home Page
To ensure high findability of the feature we placed it in the top section of the Account Home Page. We used an accordion to display the newly purchased subscriptions at a glance. The component allowed us to show the details of the latest purchase and to contract the earlier ones until the users were ready to work on them. We let users assign the product to an existing team or create a new team in the accordion. Then we directed them to the User Management page where the subscription appeared on the list of products assigned to a team. Now the admin could assign the product to particular users.
Abbreviated onboarding flow from the Home Page
2 – Implementation in the Account User Management Page
Logics:
An administrator clicks on “Assign Users” in the Autodesk post purchase email.
They land directly on the User Management page in Account that shows an alert banner urging them to assign the new product to a team.
The button on the banner opens a modal where they can assign a subscription to a team.
After clicking “Assign” in the modal they are back on the User Management page where they can now assign individual users to seats.
Though a series of design critiques and iterations involving UX, Content Strategy and Product Management we arrived at the final design.
Abbreviated onboarding flow on the By Product Page
We confirmed with users thats the flow was understandable and handed visual high fidelity mockups to engineering. During implementation I handled additional questions from the team, for example about when and if we should allow users to dismiss the banner. Eventually I participated in User Accessibility Testing identifying defects on my own and logging them into Jira.
Defects examples that were logged into Jira
Process: Module 2 - Assign Users, Access and Install
As the launch of the feature had a positive impact on administrator experience metrics we proceeded to the second step that would embrace feedback from the users.
“I want to assign users, install, update licenses and set up SSO as quickly as possible.”
Based on it we created requirements for the module. It needed to confirm conditions of the purchase (number of seats, role of the purchaser, plan, subscription and offering type). Then it should guide the administrator to complete the task necessary to start using it.
Module 2 requirements
We maintained a consistent design approach using an accordion and placing it in a high-visibility top section of the Home page. With a clear hierarchy of information we confirmed the conditions and showed user the path to actions.
Module placement and responsive view
Selected cases with different offering types
Results
“Get Started for Admins” onboarding improved the CES Onboard by 6 point and the 30-day assignment rate by 8% (4 to 12%). The move subscription between teams workflow has dropped from 890 to 137 per month. A 30% reduction in Teams-related support cases was recorded. Engagement with module is increasing traffic to Account pages By User +39k, Custom Install +12k, Product detail +20k visits.
Next steps (future state)
Make it easier for the administrators to self-serve by combining the modules into one. Allow them to assign subscriptions to teams and completed the remaining tasks in one flow.
Add the SSO setup capability to the module.
Convert it into a smart component/pattern that can be reused at different customer touchpoints to ensure design consistency and save design and engineering time.