Ask IH: Pre-populated data vs. Wizard?

Hey @lindamiles,

This is going to be a long reply :-)

You've heard you have to get your users to the AHA moment as soon as possible. But the aha moment is more like an aha process;

• Your potential user has a weak aha moment first. Causing them to sign up for your service. They have not invested any time yet, so the chance that they stop using your service is high. The key point is that they have a strong indication that your service is the solution for their problem.
• The next step is that you have to find out what the user is actually trying to do. Your service might have several key solutions, the user should be able to choose an onboarding path accordingly.
• In the onboarding process, you have to explain 3 things: what your tool does, how this is achieved and why.
• What: What does your tool do. What are the features. Which terms does it use. Explain these terms, because your customer might use different terms for the same thing in their organization, causing misalignment and early drop-offs. How do the terms relate to each other. What is the logic process to follow.
• How: which steps to take to achieve the goal. (How to guides)
• Why: This is probably the most important part and often forgotten. Why does your tool work in a certain way? You've designed the tool, you are the expert. The customer wants to become the expert as well, but might miss a couple key insights your tool is designed around. If they WHY CLICKS, you have the AHA MOMENT. The why moment also creates a story moment, for a user to tell a colleague and make them feel smart.

## The onboarding closes the information gap

That is the gap between the mental model the user has of their problem and how your tool fits the solution.

Pre-population the app can help, if this is actually constructed to help them learn to use your service. The pre-populated stuff must be a guide for them. If it just here to fill the blanks, you will not achieve anything. Blank slates are a great way to inform users about features, when you pre-populate, you take that moment away.

Because the user doesn't know your service, they might have click-angst. They are afraid to fill out stuff, because it might have unintended consequences, that can not be undone. You can overcome this in many ways. The higher the sit-back-and-relax-factor the better. Video tutorials are a great, make sure you also include how to undo stuff in the tutorial. Really give your users the feeling they are in control and can undo any mistake. I run a SAAS to for tickets shops. When users create a shop, it is in test-mode. They can do anything, change any setting, and create test orders, but the shop is closed for customers. Once they are happy, they can open the shop and all test orders are deleted. This is communicated throughout the process; "no worries, it is just a test." It works really great.

A wizard is nice, as long as they don't actually have to follow the wizard. The wizard should be a dry run. If you do this, you get that, so your problem is solved, Tada, now do it yourself.

## Prefilling your kanban board.

Prefilling this is a great opportunity to help your customers in 2 ways, with a tool and with a process. Basecamp also took this direction, once they found out many of their users need both a tool and a process for effective communication and collaboration.

Cheers,