What happens if you make software too difficult to use? Probably the same thing that happens if you never made it at all — no one uses it.
It’s easy to get users to adapt to familiar concepts like drag-and-drop, but what if you made something totally new? You need a creative user onboarding process, like the one Microsoft used back in 1992 and the others I’m going to look at in this post.
11 Profound Influences on Steve Jobs’ Design PhilosophyProcessStreet
Do you want to be the next Steve Jobs? The creative force behind Apple’s ultra-minimal aesthetic has an incredibly diverse array of influences ranging from kitchen appliances to LSD trips.
Here are 11 of the biggest influences, most profound experiences and life lessons that formed Steve Jobs into the man who would go on to define UX and product design standards for years to come.
Concierge Onboarding: How to Make Customers Happy and Keep Them That WayProcessStreet
The 1980s was the dawn of technology as we know it. It was also the dawn of hilarious technological hyperbole — you could hear the excitement in the voices of companies declaring they had built ‘the only computer you’ll need for years to come‘. Although laughable in the present day, commercial home computers like the Commodore 64 were a huge improvement on the monstrous machines of past eras so unwieldy they had to be built into rooms. In fact, for the first time in history, you could buy your own computer.
3 Checklists to Perfect Your Client Onboarding ProcessProcessStreet
The process of perfect onboarding differs depending on your business, but the essence is the same. Of course, you’re updating your CRM and complying with legal regulation, but that’s not going to make the customer think you’re the best choice and quell the buyer’s remorse. You’ve also got to build a relationship, get to know the customer’s individual needs (once they’ve signed up, they’re not just a vague profile or target audience) then integrate them into your existing business process.
Communication is a crucial element to success for any business. But for businesses that has an OUTSOURCING operation or runs on virtual teams, communication is life or death. Virtual environments do not have the luxury of being in the same room or building as their co-workers, so the natural communication benefits from working in an office disappear.
Poor communication can lead to lower quality, productivity and moral across the origination.
Content marketing is not easy, it takes a lot of elbow grease to create valuable content and even more to promote it! The promotion part is something that many companies tend to miss when looking at a content marketing strategy. A general rule of thumb is you should spend 30% of your time creating content and 70% promoting it. That’s why I created this checklist you can use to promote the content you work so hard to create.
You can get the interactive version of this checklist by creating an account with Process Street and copying the Website Launch Checklist from the examples section.
Inside Process Street you can edit the checklist as you wish, track the progress and collaborate with you team.
Kseniya Leshchenko: Shared development support service model as the way to ma...Lviv Startup Club
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Website – www.pmday.org
Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/startuplviv
FB – https://www.facebook.com/pmdayconference
VAT Registration Outlined In UAE: Benefits and Requirementsuae taxgpt
Vat Registration is a legal obligation for businesses meeting the threshold requirement, helping companies avoid fines and ramifications. Contact now!
https://viralsocialtrends.com/vat-registration-outlined-in-uae/
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Recruiting in the Digital Age: A Social Media MasterclassLuanWise
In this masterclass, presented at the Global HR Summit on 5th June 2024, Luan Wise explored the essential features of social media platforms that support talent acquisition, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok.
LA HUG - Video Testimonials with Chynna Morgan - June 2024Lital Barkan
Have you ever heard that user-generated content or video testimonials can take your brand to the next level? We will explore how you can effectively use video testimonials to leverage and boost your sales, content strategy, and increase your CRM data.🤯
We will dig deeper into:
1. How to capture video testimonials that convert from your audience 🎥
2. How to leverage your testimonials to boost your sales 💲
3. How you can capture more CRM data to understand your audience better through video testimonials. 📊
11 Profound Influences on Steve Jobs’ Design PhilosophyProcessStreet
Do you want to be the next Steve Jobs? The creative force behind Apple’s ultra-minimal aesthetic has an incredibly diverse array of influences ranging from kitchen appliances to LSD trips.
Here are 11 of the biggest influences, most profound experiences and life lessons that formed Steve Jobs into the man who would go on to define UX and product design standards for years to come.
Concierge Onboarding: How to Make Customers Happy and Keep Them That WayProcessStreet
The 1980s was the dawn of technology as we know it. It was also the dawn of hilarious technological hyperbole — you could hear the excitement in the voices of companies declaring they had built ‘the only computer you’ll need for years to come‘. Although laughable in the present day, commercial home computers like the Commodore 64 were a huge improvement on the monstrous machines of past eras so unwieldy they had to be built into rooms. In fact, for the first time in history, you could buy your own computer.
3 Checklists to Perfect Your Client Onboarding ProcessProcessStreet
The process of perfect onboarding differs depending on your business, but the essence is the same. Of course, you’re updating your CRM and complying with legal regulation, but that’s not going to make the customer think you’re the best choice and quell the buyer’s remorse. You’ve also got to build a relationship, get to know the customer’s individual needs (once they’ve signed up, they’re not just a vague profile or target audience) then integrate them into your existing business process.
Communication is a crucial element to success for any business. But for businesses that has an OUTSOURCING operation or runs on virtual teams, communication is life or death. Virtual environments do not have the luxury of being in the same room or building as their co-workers, so the natural communication benefits from working in an office disappear.
Poor communication can lead to lower quality, productivity and moral across the origination.
Content marketing is not easy, it takes a lot of elbow grease to create valuable content and even more to promote it! The promotion part is something that many companies tend to miss when looking at a content marketing strategy. A general rule of thumb is you should spend 30% of your time creating content and 70% promoting it. That’s why I created this checklist you can use to promote the content you work so hard to create.
You can get the interactive version of this checklist by creating an account with Process Street and copying the Website Launch Checklist from the examples section.
Inside Process Street you can edit the checklist as you wish, track the progress and collaborate with you team.
Kseniya Leshchenko: Shared development support service model as the way to ma...Lviv Startup Club
Kseniya Leshchenko: Shared development support service model as the way to make small projects with small budgets profitable for the company (UA)
Kyiv PMDay 2024 Summer
Website – www.pmday.org
Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/startuplviv
FB – https://www.facebook.com/pmdayconference
VAT Registration Outlined In UAE: Benefits and Requirementsuae taxgpt
Vat Registration is a legal obligation for businesses meeting the threshold requirement, helping companies avoid fines and ramifications. Contact now!
https://viralsocialtrends.com/vat-registration-outlined-in-uae/
Company Valuation webinar series - Tuesday, 4 June 2024FelixPerez547899
This session provided an update as to the latest valuation data in the UK and then delved into a discussion on the upcoming election and the impacts on valuation. We finished, as always with a Q&A
Recruiting in the Digital Age: A Social Media MasterclassLuanWise
In this masterclass, presented at the Global HR Summit on 5th June 2024, Luan Wise explored the essential features of social media platforms that support talent acquisition, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok.
LA HUG - Video Testimonials with Chynna Morgan - June 2024Lital Barkan
Have you ever heard that user-generated content or video testimonials can take your brand to the next level? We will explore how you can effectively use video testimonials to leverage and boost your sales, content strategy, and increase your CRM data.🤯
We will dig deeper into:
1. How to capture video testimonials that convert from your audience 🎥
2. How to leverage your testimonials to boost your sales 💲
3. How you can capture more CRM data to understand your audience better through video testimonials. 📊
Cracking the Workplace Discipline Code Main.pptxWorkforce Group
Cultivating and maintaining discipline within teams is a critical differentiator for successful organisations.
Forward-thinking leaders and business managers understand the impact that discipline has on organisational success. A disciplined workforce operates with clarity, focus, and a shared understanding of expectations, ultimately driving better results, optimising productivity, and facilitating seamless collaboration.
Although discipline is not a one-size-fits-all approach, it can help create a work environment that encourages personal growth and accountability rather than solely relying on punitive measures.
In this deck, you will learn the significance of workplace discipline for organisational success. You’ll also learn
• Four (4) workplace discipline methods you should consider
• The best and most practical approach to implementing workplace discipline.
• Three (3) key tips to maintain a disciplined workplace.
Set off and carry forward of losses and assessment of individuals.pptx
How microsofts secret user onboarding process fooled us all
1. process.st https://www.process.st/2015/09/user-onboarding-process/
Benjamin Brandall
How Microsoft’s Secret User Onboarding Process Fooled Us All
What happens
if you make
software too
difficult to use?
Probably the
same thing that
happens if you
never made it at
all — no one
uses it.
It’s easy to get
users to adapt
to familiar
concepts like
drag-and-drop,
but what if you
made
something totally new? You need a creative user onboarding process, like the one Microsoft used back in 1992 and
the others I’m going to look at in this post.
The Software User Onboarding Process
I already talked about concierge onboarding, so this time I’m going to look at the total opposite — a style known as
low-touch user onboarding. It’s not always possible to work with every customer, especially if you’re distributing
software on a massive scale like Microsoft Windows, so writing onboarding into your product is a necessity.
James Hunt‘s excellent article on Mental Floss reveals the true purpose of Minesweeper, Microsoft Solitaire, FreeCell
and Hearts: a gamified way to teach users concepts vital to success using Windows 3.1.
Let’s take a look at exactly how they did it.
Minesweeper
What better way to tempt interaction than a gray 8×8 grid, a smiley face and implied explosions?
Before the internet, Minesweeper was surely the biggest office time-suck and responsible for more wasted hours than
any other single factor. Users did, however, learn a valuable lesson.
You see, Minesweeper wasn’t created to be fun. It was designed to help users transition from the command line to the
mouse and ease into the new graphical user interface offered by Windows 3.1.
2. If you’ve spent hours of your life playing Minesweeper, there’s no need to feel bad about it. Chances are, it helped you
learn to right-click.
Microsoft Solitaire
With Solitaire dating back to the 1700s, Microsoft used it as a familiar setting to teach users something that it’s hard to
imagine not doing now — drag-and-drop.
Microsoft knew perfectly well that teaching mouse skill as an obvious tutorial would not go down well with users.
Especially command-line snobs, ready to roll their eyes at the graphical excesses of anything other than the terminal.
This is why they rolled it into an addictively simple game most people already knew how to play.
Why are modern apps so easy to use? Probably because we learned the mechanics from games like Solitaire (see
Hearthstone for an example of a modern game with a virtual deck of cards). The same goes for Trello which uses the
same drag-and-drop system and has an added bonus of being similar to a wall full of sticky notes (something I’m
actually too young to know about, but might have been popular at some point).
Hearts
Hearts was introduced with Windows for Workgroups 3.1 in 1992 — the first network-ready version of Windows. It’s
no coincidence that Hearts could be played against players on other computers through the magic of LAN, and
introducing it in the first networked Windows was the perfect way to secretly prepare users for office Counter Strike
LAN parties (just kidding, I think).
3. What Microsoft was really doing was showing users that it is possible for their computers to send and receive data,
and getting them used to the idea of setting up networks. When it finally came down to doing some serious work, the
lessons learned in Hearts would be put to good use.
Enough about genius games; how have companies applied these digitally-archaic ideas to modern apps? Has
Microsoft tricked them, too? To find out, I signed up for a bunch of apps and tried to see where they were tricking me
into doing the worst thing of all – actually learning something!
Slack: A Modern Low-Touch Success Story
Microsoft really got creative with its user onboarding process because it didn’t have much choice; the limited
capabilities of Windows 3.1 forced creativity. Today apps aren’t forced to be creative because of limited options, but
because of market saturation. The total amount of apps on the Apple store alone totals over 1.5 million. While not all
of them need onboarding of any kind, it’s the ones which combine great functionality with ease-of-use that succeed.
A remarkable example of low-touch onboarding is Slack‘s robotic greeter and orientation specialist, Slackbot.
While we’ve still got Microsoft on the brain, a good comparison with Slackbot would be Clippy, the overly enthusiastic
paperclip/help document and something I would have really paid more attention to if I knew I’d be writing this article 18
years later.
Anyway, since Samuel Hulick has already outdone anyone in the field of Slack onboarding analysis, I thought I’d talk
a little more about Slackbot since he seemed to be lost for words.
4. This is the first conversation you have on Slack. Certainly more fun than profile setup pages (which are the biggest
bores since confirmation emails), and has filled our Slack directory up with information — a great help when I joined
the company.
Slackbot’s assistance doesn’t end there. And, like most software now, the only limit is the amount of thought you want
to put into getting it set up. For example, when new employees are looking for resources, Slackbot could be
programmed to fetch them:
Slackbot is a fine example of a placeholder on an otherwise blank slate. For users starting up Slack for the first time, it
demonstrates:
Notifications
5. How to read direct messages
How to send direct messages
How to add details to your profile
And all the while it’s just letting us think we’re chatting to a nice, friendly robot when we’re actually learning things.
Nice try, Slack. You won’t get me that easily.
Gamification of the User Onboarding Process: One Step Past Microsoft
While Microsoft used real games as components of their secret user onboarding scheme, for the rest of us without an
operating system to call our own, gamification will have to do.
And it’s not a bad option either — eLearningIndustry cites an increase by 9% in retention when software has
elements of gamification. This could be because users learn 14% more skills and 11% more facts in the process.
Yu-Kai Chou has written an awesome article about gamification in onboarding, and is one of the authorities on the
topic. As someone who has played more than enough video games for one lifetime, gamification is fascinating to me.
Here are some elements to consider when gamifying your software’s onboarding experience.
Step-by-step tutorials
Remember when software used to come with a Biblical user manual so densely written you were scared to touch the
software? Thankfully, that’s changed. Software companies usually offer the user guide as a when-needed reference
instead of the only way to learn. This is basic stuff, and even apps without gamified onboarding do this. An example of
a great step-by-step tutorial is Duolingo, a language learning app that doesn’t limit gamification to the onboarding
process.
6. The owl helper here is another thing that conjured up memories of Clippy. Narrative is an important part of
gamification, as is meeting goals. The blue progress bar will be familiar to anyone who has played games where you
level up, commonly RPGs like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy or Skyrim.
What happens when we get to the end of it?
Just look at that enthusiastic title, sharply-increasing graph, and pleasingly-perfect circle. Duolingo has already made
you feel successful using its product, all while teaching you how to use it in a fun way.
Early win-states
7. Remember how easy the first level of games used to be? To use World of Warcraft as an example, you go from level 1
to level 2 within the first 5 minutes of playing the game. This instant gratification makes users feel good, and
encourages them to stick around and keep paying that subscription money even when it might take a whole day (or 5)
to level up later on down the line.
What kinds of early win-states can software designers build into their onboarding process?
When we talk about early win-states from the perspective of software, we usually call it an ‘ Aha! moment‘. The
interesting thing about Aha! moments is that they are often decided upon by the designer, not the user. (We decide
when you say Aha!). Software uses early win-states to train you to use it and condition you into repeating what makes
you feel good and what ensures you get the best use out of their product.
When you do something fundamental to the idea behind an app or proven to be a driving factor behind retention, you’ll
be rewarded. It’s simple positive reinforcement.
A subtle way of doing this is with a checklist. At Process Street, we know checklists are brilliant at motivating people
to act. Evernote uses a 5-point checklist to ‘help you remember everything’:
I don’t know about you, but a list with a few items left unchecked makes me nervous. The thought of having that
checklist sticking around and bugging me to complete it is enough for me to succumb to the 5 things Evernote thinks I
need to do to become a successful user. Well done, Evernote.
8. Identity creation
When you start playing a video game for the first time, one of the first steps is usually character creation. At the most
basic level, it’s naming the save file, at the most complex you’ll get to customize every aspect of your character’s
appearance, voice and even history.
The same goes for software, especially those with social aspects. The whole point of Slackbot was profile creation,
which is a tactic to increase retention by getting you personally involved with it before you do anything else.
To make you feel more at home, some apps or sites like GrowthHackers pre-populate your profile by bringing in your
details from Twitter, Facebook or wherever you signed up through — Sean Ellis knows what’s up.
According to Yu-kai Chou, “just like how IKEA makes people attached to their furnitures by having customers build the
furnitures themselves”. So that’s why they do it…
When Was the Last Time It Was Fun to Learn Software?
Even though business software is used for ‘serious’ tasks, that doesn’t mean it has to be a drag.
According to Susanna Halonen writing for Happyologist:
“When you’re having fun, you boost your positive emotions which activate the learning centres in your
brain. That means you are connecting with more of the brain power you have and hence you’ll be more
alert in noticing new things and learning through them”.
If that doesn’t sound like an effective way to program users into becoming successful with your product, I don’t know
what does.
Does your product engage users with gamification? What kinds of effect has this had on your retention?
Let me know in the comments. +10xp to you if you do