Users start acting immediately rather than reading, even when reading would be faster, so design has to teach through doing.
PSY·007
I'm designing
An Onboarding Flow
The path from arrival to the first moment the product is actually worth something.
What this surface turns on
- What the activation moment is, in measurable terms.
- What is asked for before value, and what can wait until after.
- How capability is introduced over time.
- What a new user's first screen looks like when nothing exists yet.
Where these usually go wrong
- A product tour used to explain an interface instead of fixing it.
- Everything front-loaded into the first session, so none of it is retained.
- Commitment demanded before any value is delivered.
- An empty first screen with no starting point.
- Measuring tour completion rather than activation.
Why these
Onboarding is a sequencing problem: everything between arrival and the first useful moment is a place to leave. The entries cover ordering, deferral, teaching in context and the empty state that carries most of the teaching.
Why it works the way it does
The reasoning layer. Read these when a decision needs justifying, or when something is failing and you cannot say why.
Effort increases as a visible goal gets nearer, and artificial early progress accelerates the whole journey.
LAW·014
Unfinished tasks stay mentally active, which is why visible progress pulls people back to complete them.
LAW·010
Learning spread over time is retained far better than the same amount of learning crammed into one session.
PSY·008
People value things more once they own them, and more still once they have put work into them.
BIAS·007
People judge an experience by its most intense moment and its ending, not by the average of the whole thing.
LAW·007
The craft decisions
The visual and structural foundations that carry most of the weight on this surface.
The order in which elements are noticed, controlled by size, weight, colour, position and space.
FND·001
Empty space is a design element that groups, emphasises and sets pace, not leftover area.
FND·015
Using size, weight, colour and space to make the structure of text visible before it is read.
FND·032
Animation should explain a change, and anything that does not explain something is delay.
FND·052
Patterns to reach for
Solutions people already recognise, with the conditions under which each one earns its place.
Getting someone to their first real outcome, which is a very different goal from explaining the interface.
PAT·014
The screen before there is anything to show, which is a teaching opportunity rather than a gap.
PAT·010
Breaking a long task into steps, which reduces per-screen load but adds navigation cost and abandonment points.
PAT·016
What to show while waiting, chosen by how long the wait is and whether its length is known.
PAT·011
Components you will specify
Each entry covers the states, behaviour and accessibility contract you need to define.
Communicating how far through something the user is, which requires honesty about what you can measure.
CMP·026
Blocks everything else, which is why it should be reserved for things that genuinely cannot wait.
CMP·010
A short description on hover or focus, which must never be the only place information lives.
CMP·013
Accessibility requirements
Not a separate pass. These are the requirements this surface raises, mapped to the decisions that produce them.
Deliberately moving focus when the interface changes, so keyboard and screen reader users are not stranded.
A11Y·004
Everything must be operable with a keyboard alone, which is the single most load-bearing accessibility requirement.
A11Y·002
Large-scale motion can cause nausea and dizziness, so the system preference must be honoured.
A11Y·012
Telling assistive technology that something changed, when focus did not move to say so.
A11Y·009
Language and content
The words do more work here than most teams budget for.
The small pieces of text that do most of the work: labels, hints, empty states, errors and confirmations.
WRT·001
Voice is who you are and stays constant. Tone is how you speak in a moment and must change with the situation.
WRT·003
Deciding what content a user needs and in what order, which is a design activity rather than a writing one.
WRT·004
How to find out
Research methods suited to the questions this surface raises.
Watching people attempt real tasks, which is the most direct evidence available about whether a design works.
RES·001
Measuring progression through a sequence, where the largest drop is rarely the biggest opportunity.
RES·011
Participants record their own experience over time, which captures things a single session cannot.
RES·013
Measuring what people do at scale, which tells you where problems are and never why they exist.
RES·010
Check your work
Interactive checklists, with progress saved in your browser.
Whether a new user reaches real value, and how much you make them do before they get there.
CHK·005
A review pass for any form, covering structure, labelling, validation, errors and accessibility.
CHK·001
Documents you might need
Fillable templates, prefilled so they are usable rather than empty.
Every path through a task, including the error paths and the states most flows forget.
TPL·005
A session script with tasks phrased as goals, and moderator prompts that do not lead.
TPL·007
Decisions other teams made
Worked cases, including the options that were rejected and why.
A payments product added security badges and lost conversion, then recovered it by removing them and explaining what actually happens to the money.
CASE·002
A retailer required registration before purchase to build its customer database, and lost the sales it was trying to capture data about.
CASE·001
Designing something else?
Neighbouring territory. Each surface reuses much of the same material, arranged around the decisions that surface turns on.