Gannett | Onboarding
Gannett and the USA TODAY Network strives to build communities and share exclusive, award-winning content. In order to better connect with our users and increase engagement the product team began work on a fully realized onboarding experience for users to learn about their benefits and begin personalizing their news.
Overview
Role
Product Designer
Design a multi-part onboarding experience for subscribers and registered users to learn about their benefits and personalize their news for both local and national sites. Connect with users in different parts of the product to learn their habits to show we’re listening to them.
Timeline
Problem
November 2021 – Present
1. Retain subscribers by introducing them to all of their benefits.
2. Increase user satisfaction with our products through increased communication and transparency.
3. Increase engagement with individual products and benefits.
Goals
DISCOVER
To start this project we focused on better understanding user needs and pain points when first subscribing to our sites. To do so, we ran a 10 day unmoderated study through dscout with 9 users and synthesized our findings through affinity mapping:
Understanding our users
I also ran an unmoderated initial user test with 8 users through usertesting.com to determine how well the current onboarding emails were performing and to gain additional user insights and quantitative data.
38%
were confused by the welcome email
63%
thought the ‘Letter from the Editor’ had too much information
75%
mentioned really liking the ‘Share a Bonus Subscription’ benefit
Confusing subject lines create uncertainty and decrease the likelihood of users opening our messages. Users are wary of scams and want subject lines to be direct, professional, and set expectations.
Users prefer brevity and don’t want their time wasted. Emails should be straightforward and clear, getting straight to the point. The longer the email is the less the user will read.
The designs of the emails were not memorable. Although the simplicity of the emails were appreciated as they were easy to read and not cluttered, they were also described as ‘plain’ with ‘a lack of design.’
Users had questions after reading the emails and found some of the language and information to be unclear. Little value was seen in the letter from the editor.
DEFINE
Based on our research, I created three user personas to focus and inform our design decisions and further empathize with our users. Meet Steve, Demi, and Leslie!
Who are we designing for?
Moving forward
Our research informed us of a few clear insights to keep in mind as we began the design process:
We need a multi-part onboarding process with several touchpoints to meet users where they are.
Onboarding will need to be thought of from multiple points of view to address the needs of all of our users.
We need to determine which benefits are most important to users so it’s clear which ones to focus on promoting.
Personalization is key to users and needs to be emphasized in onboarding.
DESIGN
To start the design process I created a series of user flows representing the full onboarding experience, and the post-subscription/post-registration onboarding flows.
User flows
My team designed in low, medium, and high fidelity throughout this process, testing and iterating as we went.
The design process
Low-fidelity
Mid-fidelity
High-fidelity
We created cohesive designs across all of onboarding to bring delight to the experience and to ensure our messaging is recognizable to users at all touchpoints.
Visual design
After 20+ rounds of unmoderated user testing at different levels of fidelity with 150+ users, we iterated based on the some of the following major insights:
Usability testing
17%
increase in visibility of modules with icons rather than images
60%
of users immediately tried to close the pop-up onboarding CTA when reading an article
31%
of users said follow authors wasn’t a valuable benefit to them
Anything that resembles an ad or doesn’t look like part of the article is ignored. Users mentally filter out anything perceived to be an ad so they can continue reading – this includes pop-ups or overlays.
Most users were open to being asked demographic questions, however 1-2 users always had a strong negative reaction leaving a bad taste in their mouth as their first impression of being a subscriber.
Users are more engaged with the onboarding flow when they see it revolves around active personalization rather than learning about benefits.
There is a difference between modules being noticed vs being recognized as a message for subscribers. Being clear in language increases user understanding. Utilizing iconography and imagery also made the modules more noticeable.
After months of in-depth analysis and design iterations we handed our final designs off to engineering to begin development. Below are links to prototypes for each stage of our onboarding process.
DELIVER
Final designs
Post-Subscription Onboarding
After completing checkout users are encouraged to begin personalizing their news and learning about the benefits of their new subscription through a comprehensive onboarding flow. These designs were made to be intuitive and informative while making users excited about the product. The onboarding flow is the user’s first touchpoint where we can learn their likes, dislikes, and news habits before they start reading.
Post-Registration Onboarding
We adapted our post-subscription onboarding flow to work for registered users after creating an account. The designs function and look the same but this flow is more concise and focuses on personalization. Registered users don’t have money at stake and would rather get back into the product than learn about their benefits.
Nudge Journey
After users complete the onboarding flow they enter into the nudge journey where they will see modules within the site that share information regarding their benefits. This shows we are listening to what users are telling us and are actively communicating. If a user chooses not to complete the onboarding flow they will default to the nudge journey in order to personalize and learn about their benefits.
Dropdown Menu
My team updated the current dropdown menu designs to be more comprehensive and interactive for users. We took advantage of this space to inform users of their benefits, encourage action to be taken, and provide future updates. Here, users can find a personal progress tracker and notifications to keep them on track to complete onboarding.
Tiffany Tiles
At the top of USA TODAY Network sites users can find Tiffany Tiles, which are small tiles meant to utilize blank space to inform users. Currently, this space is used primarily for promotions. I redesigned the tiles to focus on onboarding, informing users of each of their benefits on a rotating calendar.
Benefits Guides
Although we designed many different touch points for users to learn about their benefits and become more involved with the site, we needed a central location users could navigate to to learn about everything their subscription or account has to offer. I designed a new benefits guide, outlining what a subscription or a free account comes with so users can take full advantage of our products.
