New customers were taking more than a week to reach their first meaningful moment with the product. The longer it took, the less likely they were to renew. This is how we fixed it.
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
TEAM
1 PM – 3 Engineers – CSM Input
SCOPE
Onboarding flow design, product structure exploration, prototyping & testing, UX/UI design, collaboration with product and engineering
OUTCOME
Nearly 40% increase in customers moving from purchase directly into the app
THE PROBLEM
Customers had no guided path from purchase to product.
Customers landed in the product after purchase with no direction. The dashboard showed everything as complete when nothing was set up.
No route into the product after checkout.
No obvious next steps once inside the app.
Dashboard showed green with nothing connected.
Flow didn’t follow patterns users already knew.
THE APPROACH
Unify the journey. Clarify every step.
“I noticed the CSM team already had a successful onboarding structure: they always gave customers one next action at a time. The product experience did the opposite.”
PRINCIPLE 1
One clear next step at all times
PRINCIPLE 2
Dashboard hidden until setup is real
PRINCIPLE 3
Flow works across web and mobile, picks up where users left off
WORKFLOW 1
Mapping the full flow to uncover gaps and edge cases
Before wireframes, I mapped the complete onboarding journey across every access level. Different users moved through the product in different ways, and the experience needed to support those paths without feeling disconnected. Mapping the full journey early also helped uncover edge cases, operational constraints, and moments where users could easily get stuck or lose progress.
A flowchart covering the full onboarding flow for each access level, to keep engineer discussions focused.
WORKFLOW 2
Designing the step-by-step experience
One principle guided every screen: no user should ever wonder what to do next. The guided flow worked across web and mobile, picked up where users left off, and kept the dashboard hidden until setup was real.
The flow continues from web to mobile, keeping users guided across both without losing momentum.
WORKFLOW 3
Catching users at their most engaged
The Thank You page was the most overlooked moment in the journey. Right after purchase, users are motivated and paying attention. We redesigned the confirmation and login flow to use that window, moving users directly into the product before the momentum faded.
From checkout to confirmation to login, catching users at their most engaged and moving them into the app quickly.
THE KEY TRADEOFF
The onboarding flow had to balance clarity and flexibility.
The challenge was not just simplifying onboarding, but deciding what to optimise for at each stage of the journey. Many of the design decisions involved balancing clarity, flexibility, operational realities, and user momentum. These tradeoffs shaped how the final experience behaved across checkout, web, mobile, and setup completion.
THE SOLUTION
Setup that moves users forward, not just through.
The old dashboard looked complete before anything was set up. The new flow replaced it entirely. Clear steps, accurate status indicators, and a mobile experience that picked up where web left off. Setup became a starting point, not an endpoint.
The journey starts the moment users purchase the service.
Guided onboarding begins when users arrive on the dashboard.
Setup continues seamlessly on mobile, regardless of where users left off.
Some onboarding moments also helped expose higher-tier abilities to lower-plan customers.
BEFORE and AFTER
THE THANK YOU PAGE – Before and after, drag to compare.
BEFORE
The Thank You page was essentially a receipt with some product imagery. It confirmed the purchase but did nothing to prepare the customer for what came next.
AFTER
The page was redesigned to show both the order summary and a clear set of actions customers could take while waiting for their device to arrive. What was previously dead time became productive time.
BEFORE
Customers had to figure out on their own how to do anything meaningful before the device arrived. They waited passively, which meant activation was always delayed by delivery times.
AFTER
Customers could configure their properties in advance, so that when the device arrived, everything was already in place. Device delivery became a natural trigger for activation rather than the start of a longer setup process.
BEFORE
The primary action was to read help articles. It was a safe default, but it sent users away from the product at the worst possible moment.
AFTER
The primary action brought users directly into the app to begin onboarding. Help and support remained available, but were no longer the first thing customers saw after purchase.
THE DASHBOARD – Before and after, drag to compare.
BEFORE
The dashboard looked complete from the moment a user logged in, but it did not indicate what to actually do next. Users were left to figure it out on their own.
AFTER
A guided flow replaced the empty dashboard during setup. Each step was clearly outlined, so users always knew where they were, what they needed to do, and what was coming next.
BEFORE
There was no natural moment to discover what else the product could do. Users completed basic setup and stopped there, often without realising more was available.
AFTER
The guided flow introduced additional features at the right moment—when users were already engaged and ready to explore. Setup became a starting point rather than an endpoint.
BEFORE
Users who downloaded the mobile app were left without guidance on what to do next. The journey simply stopped.
AFTER
The mobile app continued the same guided flow, keeping users on track regardless of device.
THE OUTCOME
40% more customers made it through the door.
~40%
increase in customers moving from purchase into the app
< 1 week
average activation time after launch
fewer hand-holding support requests from the customer team
“The MVP was a starting point, not a finish line.”
After launch, the post-purchase welcome email was restructured to match the new flow, and the work surfaced further opportunities across the activation journey.
Closing Reflection
This project taught me that activation problems are rarely just UX problems.
They sit at the intersection of product, operations, and customer expectations, and getting to a good solution meant understanding all three, not just the screens.