Onboard into WordPress

Teardowns and principles

Dive into teardowns of popular WordPress products. We lovingly teardown each, give feedback, and dive into principles where they can improve.

What is onboarding?

User onboarding is the process a new user goes through to adopt your product. Think about the first time someone uses your product. They have to go through all the steps to get in, and hopefully they understand how it can help them, the “aha moment”. There are a hundred opportunities where someone can self-select out of that process, and a great onboarding experience can help keep the ideal customers around.This site is focused specifically on principles for WordPress plugins, but it’s also relevant regardless of the type of digital product you have.

About

Hi! I’m Joshua Wold, and I started this project to learn about onboarding in WordPress, and look for ways to improve it. I’ve been privileged to work on WordPress and Gutenberg itself as part of the design team, co-led a WordPress release, and built lots of WordPress sites for clients over the last 17 years.My goal is to find the patterns for onboarding, share them here, and also support product companies in their efforts to improve the experience for users.

Principles

Let’s look at some principles to consider for onboarding.

Stand out

Before someone installs your plugin they have to find it in the WordPress plugin repo. If your product sits alongside similar products you’ve got a matter of seconds to make sure it’s clear what it does. In the context of the WordPress plugin repo, you need to make sure your plugin is visually distinct from similar looking or sounding plugins.

Instant Activation

When a user activates your plugin, take them straight into the product. Don’t leave them on the plugin screen.

Aha moment

Get users to an “aha” moment as fast as possible. They should feel a lightbulb go off, that this product will help them accomplish their goal, and they’re on the right path.

Helpful blank states

The first time I use your product I’ll have blank states, empty areas that are waiting to be filled. Take the opportunity to use these spaces as aspirational guides, don’t make me feel bad for the place being empty, I just got started. This is your moment to shine, show your product in its best light. This helps with understanding how it works, and often provides a starting point.

Happy path

Design a clear, happy path for the main purpose of your product. If multiple uses exist, emphasize the primary one and visually downplay the rest.

Offer Support

Offer accessible support options, direct chat, such as videos, a beginner’s guide, direct contact links, FAQs, and more. While you shouldn’t rely on these as a substitute for a well-crafted onboarding experience, they’re often needed because you can’t foresee every question that users could have. For your SaaS this can be a differentiator.

Inspire users

Help users see what they can do with your product, from the first screen all the way through to in-product interactions. Sometimes this can mean a well-placed visual showing an inspirational use case, other times it’s through finely-crafted copy and buttons.

Reward success

When a user finally creates the thing they need, make sure to reward them. Give visual feedback that they did the right thing.

Explain requests

Every time you ask something, whether it’s an address, email, choosing an option, etc., you’re forcing users to give you something. Always explain why information is needed. If you’re asking a question purely for analytics purposes, say that. Users will trust you more. If you don’t have a good reason, don’t ask for it.

Reward success

If there are multiple steps to onboarding, show them. Help users see how far along they are.