onboarding-wizard-design

What it does

Designs post-signup onboarding wizards that structure the activation path toward the ah-ha moment, using step architecture, progressive disclosure, escape hatches, completion incentives, and drop-off measurement. Emphasizes patterns to avoid tutorial overload and skip-friendly-empty experiences, advocating earned-progressive-disclosure where the right steps appear at the right moments. Triggers on onboarding wizard, product onboarding, first-run experience, signup flow, activation flow, FRX, time-to-value, and low activation rates, skipped onboarding leading to non-return, or when audience research indicates missing key features.

How it works

The skill presents a framework for designing the wizard: decide if a wizard is appropriate based on setup steps and multi-action value paths; apply three framing patterns (tutorial-overload, skip-friendly-empty, earned-progressive-disclosure) to determine the approach; outline a step architecture including welcome, identity, critical setup, first-action, configuration deferral, and confirmation steps; plan the ah-ha moment as the visible value demonstration tied to an action within the first session; implement progressive disclosure patterns (default-heavy, required-now, expand-on-demand, branching) to show only what’s needed; specify skip and resume behaviors to avoid landing users in an empty product; establish per-step drop-off measurement and remediation; consider variations by user type (admin vs end-user, technical vs non-technical, team size).

When to use it

Use when scoping a first-run onboarding wizard for the first time, auditing a wizard with poor completion or activation, deciding which features warrant onboarding vs in-product help, or designing the ah-ha moment the wizard is engineered toward. It addresses triggers like activation rates, user skip behavior, and audience research indicating missing features.

What it can touch

Tools and concepts referenced include the post-signup wizard, step architecture, progressive-disclosure patterns, skip-and-resume mechanics, and per-step drop-off instrumentation to guide remediation.

Caveats

The skill notes that wizard maintenance is required to avoid decay; it cautions that skip prominence must be balanced against progress, and that activation rate concerns should center on time-to-value and the ah-ha moment within the first session.