User Onboarding

User Onboarding

Workspace Context

Read bootstrap context before asking questions: strategy/brand.md for brand, audience, offer, channels, tools, constraints, and metrics; about/me.md for personal voice; content/ideas.md and content/calendar.md for content planning. Use legacy product-marketing context files only as fallback. Save generated drafts to content/<platform>/drafts/YYYY-MM-DD_short-topic-slug.md, and route durable learnings back to strategy/brand.md, about/me.md, or content/ideas.md.

Operating Contract

This skill is self-contained for its frontmatter scope: use its local instructions, references, scripts, and assets as the playbook; ask only for missing task-specific inputs; hand off to adjacent skills instead of expanding scope; and return an actionable artifact, decision, plan, draft, or diagnostic.

Scope

Covers

• Designing the first-time user experience (FTUE) from entry/signup → first value
• Defining activation / the “aha moment” and reducing time-to-value
• Creating a “first 30 seconds” experience and a “first mile” plan (milestones to activation)
• Onboarding mechanics: progressive disclosure, guided setup, empty states, templates, checklists, feedback loops
• Instrumentation + experiments to improve activation and early retention

When to use

• “Activation is low” / “users drop during signup/onboarding”
• “Time-to-value is too long”
• “The first session doesn’t feel magical”
• “We need an onboarding redesign / guided setup / empty state improvements”
• “Define our aha moment and design onboarding to get users there”
• “Create an onboarding experiment backlog + measurement plan”

When NOT to use

• You’re onboarding employees, customers to a service process, or running training (not product onboarding).
• You don’t have a stable value proposition / ICP (use brand-messaging-and-positioning or product-market-fit-analysis first).
• You need a full retention strategy beyond onboarding (use customer-success-and-retention).
• You need a conversion review of a marketing page or form (use conversion-rate-optimization).

Inputs

Minimum required

• Product + ICP/segment(s) (1–2) and the primary job-to-be-done
• Platform + entry point (web/mobile; where FTUE starts)
• Best-available baseline metrics (even rough):
  • visit → signup → first key action → activation
  • time-to-value (time or sessions to first value)
  • D1 retention (if available)
• Current onboarding flow summary (steps/screens) and the biggest drop-off point(s)
• Constraints: timebox, eng/design capacity, allowed channels (in-app/email/push), privacy/legal/brand limits

Missing-info strategy

• Ask up to 5 questions from references/INTAKE.md, then proceed.
• If metrics are missing, proceed with explicit assumptions and label confidence.
• Do not request secrets or PII; prefer aggregated funnels and redacted screenshots.

Outputs (deliverables)

Produce an Onboarding & Activation Pack (Markdown in-chat; or as files if requested) containing:

1. Context snapshot (goal, segment, constraints, baseline)
2. Current FTUE map (step-by-step) + friction log
3. Activation / aha moment spec (behavioral definition + threshold + validation plan)
4. “First 30 seconds” experience spec (magic moment + success criteria)
5. “First mile” onboarding plan (milestones to activation; mechanics per milestone)
6. Experiment backlog (prioritized) + 3–5 experiment cards
7. Measurement + instrumentation plan (events, properties, dashboards, guardrails)
8. Rollout/rollback + risk plan
9. Risks / Open questions / Next steps (always included)

Templates and checklists:

• references/TEMPLATES.md
• references/WORKFLOW.md
• references/CHECKLISTS.md
• references/RUBRIC.md

Workflow (7 steps)

1) Intake + goal framing (activation-first)

• Inputs: User prompt; references/INTAKE.md.
• Actions: Define the primary segment and the activation outcome. Make the goal measurable (baseline → target, date). Capture constraints and guardrails (e.g., don’t increase drop-off, don’t add dark patterns).
• Outputs: Context snapshot + goal statement.
• Checks: Goal is one sentence with a metric, baseline, target, and date.

2) Map the current first-time journey (FTUE)

• Inputs: Current flow description/screens; funnel + drop-offs; support/sales notes if available.
• Actions: Create a step-by-step journey map from entry → first value. Log frictions (confusion, time, permissions, empty states, choice overload). Identify the single biggest leak.
• Outputs: FTUE map table + friction log + primary leak.
• Checks: Every step has a user goal, product action, and a measurable checkpoint (event or proxy).

3) Define the activation / “aha moment” (behavioral)

• Inputs: Candidate value behaviors; available events; retention definition (if any).
• Actions: Propose 3–5 candidate “aha” behaviors and pick one activation definition with a threshold (e.g., “creates X and shares Y within 7 days”). Specify how to validate (correlation with D7/D30; holdout if possible).
• Outputs: Activation/aha moment spec + validation plan + instrumentation needs.
• Checks: Activation is observable, repeatable, and measurable (not “understands value”).