Strong mobile onboarding is about making a good first impression. Get it right, and your user can become a loyal advocate for your product. Get it wrong, and they could leave your app in minutes and never look back.
Eighty per cent of users will abandon an app if they don’t quickly understand how to use it or see its value. Some churn is inevitable, but letting good users walk away because your onboarding is weak is unsustainable.
In this article, we’ll look at the four most common app onboarding mistakes and share how to fix or avoid them altogether.
1. Forcing Users Through Long or Tedious Flows
Long, tedious flows are a cardinal sin of mobile app onboarding. With Day 1 retention rates often as low as 20% across most app categories, it’s clear that onboarding friction is a clear driver of user churn.
If your mobile app onboarding flows require users to sign up before they get a chance to explore the app, there is a good chance that you’ll shed some potential customers. Other poor mobile onboarding examples include asking for excessive or irrelevant information or overloading users with too much information. In other words, anything that puts distance between the user and getting value from your product is one of the clearest signs of what not to do in app onboarding.
💡How to avoid long or tedious onboarding flows
Here are some onboarding best practices that will stop your users from getting bored.
Keep any required steps or information to a bare minimum.
Allow users to skip or defer non-essential steps.
Offer social logins or one-tap sign-ups to reduce friction.
Gradually introduce features as users interact with the app.
2. Showing Irrelevant or Generic Information
Effective onboarding is about doing the most you can within a limited time frame. Overloading users with information that doesn’t match their needs is a one-way ticket to disengagement and confusion. Instead, personalization is the antidote to this kind of bad onboarding experience in mobile apps, chiefly because users expect information that aligns with their goals.
Apps that personalize onboarding based on user goals or behaviors unlock higher engagement rates and faster time to value (TTV). Both of these metrics contribute significantly to user retention.
💡How to avoid irrelevant or generic information during onboarding
Use welcome surveys or behavioral clues to segment users and deliver personalized onboarding.
Tailor onboarding content to user roles, goals, or preferences.
Just focus on the features and functions that are relevant to each user segment.
3. Ignoring Post-Onboarding Support
App user onboarding is the process of guiding new users through the initial stages of using a mobile or web application. However, one of the most common mistakes in mobile onboarding is offering solid support at the start, but leaving it as a one-time thing.
In these situations, as users engage more deeply with your product and its advanced features, they can feel abandoned and on their own, which ultimately leads to unnecessary churn.
💡How to provide post-onboarding support
The first thing that you need to avoid these kinds of mobile app onboarding problems is to take a step back and think about onboarding as a whole. While the most impactful onboarding happens in the early part of the user experience, users still need help and support during the different stages of onboarding outlined below.
Primary onboarding typically ends once a user has signed up and completed the core actions needed to experience the app’s main value, often called reaching the “aha moment”. For many apps, this is when the user is able to use the app independently and has seen its core benefit.
Secondary onboarding may continue as users explore advanced features, often triggered by their engagement or specific actions within the app.
Tertiary onboarding can be ongoing, supporting users as new features are introduced or as their needs evolve.
When you think about things that way, it’s easy to determine the kind of onboarding support to provide during the secondary and tertiary stages.
For example, you can:
Provide in-app guidance and tooltips as users encounter new features with your app.
Bolster your mobile user onboarding with easy access to help resources, FAQs, knowledge bases, and customer support.
For complex mobile apps, consider checklists or in-app notifications to encourage users to engage with new features or unlock value.
4. Lack of Testing and Optimization
One of the most common and easily avoidable app onboarding problems is a lack of testing and optimization of your early user flows. Great onboarding content is the result of continuous monitoring and testing until you get the right recipe. If you fail to analyze user behavior or iterate on onboarding flows, issues go unnoticed, and users get stuck or drop off.
Tracking metrics like activation rate, retention, and TTV is essential. As a general rule, if fewer than 40% of your sign-ups hit their first key action within 24 hours, then it might be a sign that your onboarding is too complex, confusing, or not well-designed enough to engage your potential users.
💡How to avoid a lack of testing and optimization
Use onboarding tools with analytics capabilities so you can track where users drop off or become unengaged.
A/B test different onboarding flows and content to see which content drives better engagement and user retention.
Continuously refine onboarding based on real user feedback and behavior. In-app surveys are a great help here, especially if you get feedback soon after your user has completed their onboarding flow.
5 Best Practices in Modern Mobile Onboarding
Avoiding user onboarding UX mistakes is not enough. Increasing users and MRR involves awareness of the latest mobile app retention tips and best practices in use today.
Here are the five best mobile onboarding tips for better engagement.
1. Personalization
A survey by customer data platform Segment revealed that 71% of users are frustrated by impersonal app experiences. Personalization isn’t an onboarding afterthought. Instead, it should be built into your service.
Effective onboarding acknowledges that users come from diverse backgrounds, with varying goals and levels of familiarity with software. Accommodating these different cohorts meets user expectations while also increasing retention.
💡How to Personalize Onboarding
User Segmentation: Use data from sign-up forms, behavioral cues, or welcome surveys to understand user intent.
Dynamic Content: Adjust onboarding screens, tooltips, and recommendations based on user segments.
Adaptive Flows: As users interact with your app, adapt the onboarding journey in real time. If a user skips a tutorial, offer a quick recap later. Alternatively, provide contextual help when they encounter a relevant feature.
2. Progressive Disclosure
Information overload is a sure way to frustrate and overwhelm your users. Presenting information in manageable, bite-sized chunks is essential.
💡How to use progressive disclosure
Start simple: Introduce only the core features needed to get started. Save advanced options for later.
Trigger-based tutorials: Use in-app events or user actions to reveal new features. For example, only show a payment tutorial when a user attempts to make a purchase.
Milestone celebrations: Celebrate when users complete key actions (like creating their first project), then introduce the next feature or step.
3. Contextual Guidance
Contextual guidance means offering help exactly when and where users need it. Where possible, don’t break user flow. Instead, offer them help in the app, allowing them to learn how to unlock value and get back to achieving their goals and objectives.
💡How to use contextual guidance
Tooltips: Inobtrusive pop-ups that explain features as users encounter them. For example, when a user hovers over a new button, a tooltip explains its function.
Checklists: Interactive lists that guide users through essential steps, providing a sense of progress and accomplishment.
Interactive walkthroughs: Step-by-step guides that walk users through complex processes, triggered by specific user actions or milestones.
4. Accessibility
Accessibility is more than just a compliance issue. It also opens up your app to a wider pool of users and ensures everyone can get value from your solution.
💡How to make your app more accessible
Clear language: Use simple, jargon-free language and short sentences in your onboarding content.
Visual contrast: Ensure text and buttons stand out clearly against backgrounds.
Screen reader compatibility: Make sure onboarding elements are labeled for screen readers.
5. Speed
Time to value (TTV) is the time it takes for a new user to experience the core benefit of your app. In a world of quick abandonment rates, getting to the point is vital.
💡How to make your onboarding and TTV faster
Highlight the core benefit: Make sure the first onboarding screen clearly communicates what the app does and why that matters to users.
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| Waze uses benefit-focused framing in it's mobile app onboarding. |
Minimize barriers: Delay sign-up requirements until after users have seen the app’s value (e.g., let them browse as a guest).
Quick wins: Guide users to complete a simple, rewarding action within the first minute, such as creating a profile, sending a message, or checking off a task.
How Usetiful supports effective mobile onboarding
Understanding how to avoid onboarding issues in mobile apps starts with having the right tools at hand. Here’s how Usetiful can transform your mobile onboarding.
Works on React Native iOS and Android: Usetiful enables seamless onboarding across both major mobile platforms, ensuring a consistent experience for all users.
No-code/low-code implementation: Product teams can build, update, and personalize onboarding flows without writing code, reducing reliance on developers and accelerating iteration.
Manage and update onboarding flows without app releases: Instantly improve or fix onboarding experiences without waiting for app store approvals, keeping your onboarding agile and responsive to user needs.
Get in touch today to find out more about how Usetiful can help you onboard mobile users effectively, leading to increased retention and MRR.