Learning to use or master software can be overwhelming. As you try to get to grips with new tools, there is a lot of information to process and retain. The sad irony is that if it all becomes too much, you won’t retain most of the information, and you’ll never figure out how the software can help you achieve your goals and objectives.
So, why do our brains let us down when we’re trying to learn new tools? The answer can be found in an educational psychology concept developed in the late 80s called Cognitive Load Theory (CLT).
What is cognitive load?
In the late 1980s, the Australian educational psychologist John Sweller wrote a paper titled Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning. In it, Sweller argued that the human mind has limited working memory and can hold and process only 5-9 pieces of information at a time.
The paper was revolutionary because it fundamentally challenged how educators approached the design of instructional materials and learning environments.
Since its publication, CLT has been developed further and has influenced many different disciplines, including software onboarding and learning.
How to tackle cognitive load during onboarding
Over the years, educational teams have developed various tactics to reduce the impact of cognitive load. One of the best techniques is using checklists. Here is how you can use them to make things easy for your users.
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Understand psychological principles
If you want to reduce a user’s cognitive load during onboarding, there are three core psychological principles that you need to understand.
Let’s take a look at each one.
a) Progressive Disclosure
Progressive disclosure is a design technique that is perfect for onboarding checklists. In essence, it involves:
Breaking down onboarding into manageable, bite-sized chunks.
A progress bar or numbered steps will be used to let the user know where they are in the onboarding process.
Ensuring that each step contains only the most relevant information.
Employing interactive elements like tooltips, hotspots, or other kinds of contextual help to provide guidance on demand.
💡 Why do you need progressive disclosure in your onboarding?
Some of the most compelling reasons for using progressive disclosure during the onboarding process include:
When you chunk information, users are less likely to feel overwhelmed.
A step-by-step approach is more engaging.
Contextual help means users get an experience that is personalized around their needs.
b) Zeigarnik Effect & Endowed Progress Effect
This approach requires combining two different psychological principles: The Zeigarnik Effect and the Endowed Progress Effect.
Let’s look at each one separately before seeing how they can combine into something bigger.
Zeigarnik Effect
The Zeigarnik Effect, named after the psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, refers to the tendency for people to remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. The theory behind the effect is that incomplete tasks stay in our working memory. What’s more, we also have a powerful psychological drive to tie up these loose ends.
Endowed Progress Effect
The Endowed Progress Effect suggests that people are more motivated to complete a goal when they believe they've already made some progress toward it. This principle works because if a task is already somewhat completed, it feels like finishing it won’t take as much effort.
Zeigarnik Effect x Endowed Progress Effect
Merging the Zeigarnik and Endowed Progress Effect helps you build powerful and effective onboarding checklists. Here’s how you can use it to drive better onboarding and product adoption.
#1. Break down your onboarding flow into manageable chunks.
#2. Mark one or two items as completed.
#3. Leave most tasks uncompleted to promote a sense of unfinished business.
#4. Use progress indicators so users know where they are and what’s ahead.
💡 Benefits of using the Zeigarnik Effect and Endowed Progress Effect together
Here are a few of the big reasons why you should combine the Zeigarnik and Endowed Progress Effects:
When you tap into these psychological concepts, users are more likely to be engaged with your onboarding content.
Pre-filled tasks that are broken into small chunks make user goals seem more surmountable.
The Zeigarnik Effect keeps uncompleted tasks in your users' minds and encourages them to return to the app.
Everyone loves ticking off a checklist because it gives a sense of achievement.
c) IKEA Effect: Hands-on Learning Experiences
The IKEA Effect is a psychological phenomenon first observed in a Harvard University study that states that consumers place a higher value on products they have partially created or assembled themselves. While the principle originally applied to flat-pack furniture, it’s flexible enough to apply to different concepts, such as hands-on learning experiences during onboarding.
The key to applying the IKEA effect is to make your checklists as interactive as possible. So, instead of simply telling your users about a feature, set them a task that involves using the feature in question.
Here are some tips that can help you implement the principle in your checklist.
#1. Use a checklist step to trigger tooltips, product tours, and other interactive or hands-on onboarding content.
#2. Don’t overload your users with text. Instead, embrace learning by doing that prompts users to complete actions directly within the product interface.
#3. Where possible, use gamified elements to reward checklist completion.
#4. Use progress bars to encourage users and motivate them to finish the checklist.
Strategies to reduce cognitive load
Now that you’ve got a hand on the psychological principles and some of the ways you can apply them to checklists, it’s time to consider a few other proven strategies to work alongside the processes outlined in section #1.
Chunking
Chunking is a popular technique in productivity hacking circles. It involves breaking down complex information into digestible parts, and it’s one of the core principles behind using checklists to reduce cognitive load.
Chunking tips for checklists
Break tasks down into logical groups.
Use progressive disclosure to incrementally portion out information.
Keep the steps to a minimum, and only include essential data.
Clarity
If you want to eliminate the cognitive load, you need clarity and punchiness. Any copy that you include in your checklists should be short and sharp. Where possible, use visuals to communicate because our brains are wired for visuals more than they are for language.
Contextual help
Use tooltips and ln-app links to your knowledge base, FAQs, and troubleshooting articles to share information without overcrowding the screen and overloading your users.
Spaced repetition
Repetition is one of the best ways to commit information from short-term to long-term memory. However, too much repetition will bore your users. Spaced repetition is a good compromise. One option here is to create several micro lessons that use essential features so your users become familiar with complex tasks by repeating the process but for different objectives.
Personalization
If you want to keep things fresh and relevant for your users, you can tailor the onboarding process to individual users' needs and preferences. There are lots of ways to do things, such as offering customizable settings, providing personalized onboarding paths, or adapting content around roles, industries, business size, and more.
Minimization
Clutter is one of the big causes of cognitive load. If there is too much visual information to process, it can be hard to focus and really take things in. Checklists are a great way to reduce clutter because everything you need is contained, allowing you to keep your screen clear.
Accelerate product adoption techniques
Here are some more advanced steps that can help you drive product adoption with checklists.
#1. Funnel towards the aha moment
Figure out your product’s aha moment. Then, map out the steps that a user needs to take to get there. Build your checklist to crescendo at the aha moment, and hopefully, your users will stick around because the value of your product will be obvious.
#2. Embeddable checklists
Embeddable checklists are interactive, step-by-step guides that directly integrate into the UI of a product or webpage. Unlike typical popups or overlays, they don’t disrupt user flow because they appear as a natural, permanent part of the application.
The power of this seamless integration ensures embeddable checklists feel native to your platform, blending with the overall design, color scheme, and layout. The impact is dramatically improved engagement and above-average checklist completion, which helps users derive more value from the product and even reach their 'aha' moment.
#3. Secondary checklists
While your onboarding checklists should focus on the bare minimum that users need to love your product, you can target different features with additional checklists. So, if you have overlooked features, then consider a secondary checklist that focuses on particular tasks or needs that exist among your users.
#4. Get personal
Personalization is huge in marketing these days. And it can be a big part of your onboarding checklist. Use your welcome screen modal to collect info on needs, objectives, roles, industry, and any other relevant information. Then, this data will be used to segment users and serve them unique onboarding checklists that are tailored toward their goals.
Measure for success
If you implement any initiatives for onboarding, you need to know how to determine success. Here are three performance metrics that you can use to measure the effectiveness of your cognitive load-busting checklists.
Task completion times: Measure how long it takes your users to complete specific tasks on your checklist. If you find they are above your benchmark, look at your checklists and see if you can make them clearer.
Customer effort score: Use in-app surveys to ask customers how difficult it was to complete specific tasks. CES is a great measure to unearth challenging onboarding content that results from excessive cognitive load.
Activation rates: Activation rates and other conversion-focused metrics can tell you a lot about your onboarding content. Where possible, use A/B testing to find the most efficient checklist content and optimize around the most promising tests.
Final thoughts
In today’s fast-paced digital world, reducing cognitive load is essential to help users succeed with your product. By applying proven psychological principles like progressive disclosure, the Zeigarnik Effect, and the IKEA Effect — along with techniques such as chunking, clarity, and personalization — you can create a more engaging and effective onboarding experience. When users feel confident and empowered, they’re far more likely to activate, adopt, and champion your product. Want to see the difference a great onboarding checklist can make? Try Usetiful for free and help your users reach their “aha” moment faster.