Designing User Onboarding to Boost Engagement on Pluxbox
Company Overview:
Pluxbox is a no-code platform that empowers organizations to build websites and applications with an intuitive artboard view for design and a logic view for connecting workflows. Initially catering to B2B clients, the company aims to expand into the B2C market, resembling platforms like Figma and Framer.
Challenge:
New organizational users struggled to quickly understand how to use the platform effectively. Many had difficulty to discover its advanced features—such as data collections, workflows, and integrations, resulting in slower adoption and lower engagement. This made Pluxbox easily replaceable by other no-code platforms.
The final goal was to help users get started quickly and make it easier to discover key advanced features.
Business goals:
1-Increase adoption of advanced features to enhance platform value and make Pluxbox less replaceable.
2-Improve user engagement by streamlining onboarding and feature discovery.
3-Reduce basic questions and support requests.
Researching new customers:
I conducted a qualitative research with 5 new customers and together with the product owner, we identified the main customer’s problems:
Solution: Implementing a Goal-Oriented Onboarding Process
Instead of providing a generic or one-size-fits-all introduction, by focusing on user-specific goals, the onboarding becomes more relevant and effective, helping users see value in the platform faster and boosting their engagement. For example:
-If a user’s goal is to design a website, the onboarding process will emphasize the artboard view, design tools and advanced design features.
-If a user’s goal is to automate workflows, the onboarding will highlight the logic view and event-driven features.
By tailoring the onboarding journey to individual needs, users can discover advanced features that are most beneficial to them—without feeling overwhelmed by the platform’s full range of capabilities.
Design Process
1- Identifying customer’s needs
First, I tried to understand our target audience through meetings with product owner to tailor the onboarding experience. Then, using customer research, I tried to find the most common needs of our users and categorize them by personas.
2- Customer Lifecycle Stages
Then, I mapped the customer lifecycle to clarify onboarding goals, identify critical touch points, deliver early value, and design a personalized experience that enhances user engagement and retention.
3- Competitive Analysis
I studied the Onboarding strategies of similar platforms and realized the opportunities for Pluxbox are:
-Personalized onboarding flows to specific user roles.
-Simplify onboarding steps for beginners.
-Balance feature depth to avoid overwhelming new users.
Ideation
Based on the insights gathered from research, I developed an onboarding strategy focused on personalizing the customer experience to better align with each user’s unique needs and goals.
I brainstormed 10 questions that we could ask our customers during their onboarding that would help us personalize their experience.
I trimmed down the questions to the 3-5 most relevant ones, and tried to find an order that makes each answer "feed" into the next question naturally.
Design
I started creating an MVP of the onboarding flow using high-fidelity wireframes:
Iterations
After completing the initial wireframe design, I delved into various onboarding case studies to gain insights and identify best practices. By analyzing successful examples, I was able to pinpoint areas where our onboarding could be improved. Drawing inspiration from these case studies, I iterated on the design, refining user flows and enhancing the overall experience to better align with user needs and industry standards.
A/B testing: Evaluating strategies for feature adoption
To improve feature adoption, we tested two approaches:
Redirecting users to a tutorial page for advanced features.
Implementing interactive small tasks to guide users through feature adoption..
Results:
Positive impact on key business metrics
1)The number of new customers using advanced features increased from 2 to 4 out of every 10 people.
2) There has been a 25% reduction in basic support requests, as users were able to self-navigate the platform and independently resolve common issues by watching tutorials.
3) We experienced a faster time-to-first-value, with new users completing their first meaningful action more quickly, resulting in improved user engagement.
Next projects
Pluxbox user experience
Improving the user experience of the Pluxbox design environment.
