How does APP operation guide users?

User Onboarding, which means user guidance.

Simply put, user guidance is to guide users to do something, with the aim of letting users know certain information about the product or letting users use a certain function of the product. It is the key to user growth , and it largely determines whether users will use the product again and continuously, and even help the product go viral.

Why set up user guidance?

Every successful APP attaches great importance to user guidance, and spends a lot of thought on everything from copywriting , design to user experience , because the launch of all new products has a process of user recognition. No matter how good the product is, it cannot be fully used without good guidance. This shows the importance of user guidance to the product.

Purpose of User Onboarding

There are two main purposes of user guidance: user needs and product needs .

1. User needs

Users open an app to achieve a certain purpose, not to spend time learning how to use it. The role of guidance is to help users get started quickly and use their products more smoothly and conveniently, saving users time and error rates. Otherwise, users may give up using the app halfway.

2. Product Demand

That is, the needs brought about by thinking about the product direction. The main purpose of this type of guidance is to: allow new users to quickly understand how to use the product; attract users to use new functions or specify objects; provide users with help in advance to enhance the pleasure of the product experience. At the same time, it shapes users' usage habits, improves the conversion rate of specific functions, or reduces the PV of specific functions.

Types of User Onboarding

Regarding user guidance, I have summarized it into the following four types: function introduction, operation guidance, promotion and brand display.

1. Function introduction

This type of guide page is usually used to introduce functions, mainly displaying new functions or highlight functions to give users a general understanding of the main functions of the product. The forms adopted are mostly presented in the form of text combined with interface and illustrations. By summarizing and refining the product features, we conduct visual design. Use graphics that are easy for users to understand to convey information to users.

Taking Amap as an example, it adopts a combination of text and illustrations. The text is divided into two levels, the main title and the sub-title. The main title is a summary of the main functions, and the sub-title is a detailed description or further supplementary explanation of its functional modules.

2. Operation guidance

This type of guidance informs users in advance of the difficulties, unclear operations, and misunderstood operations that they may encounter when using the product. Most of them use arrows and circles for marking, mainly in hand-drawn style.

Taking Ziroom’s guide page as an example, it will demonstrate the user’s housing search needs and tell the user how to accurately find the house they like.

3. Promotion

Promotion guidance includes two categories: market-themed promotion and emotional content operation . This type of guide page is usually used when a new product is launched. The purpose is to convey the product’s attitude more and let users understand the feelings of this product. Therefore, when designing, we will consider whether it is consistent with the overall product style and the company image. If this type of guidance is not attractive enough, users will just impatiently want to swipe past it quickly. Well-made and interesting guides will make users stop and watch.

Taking QQ Reading as an example, the product is an application with a strong literary atmosphere created through traditional ink painting and vigorous brush calligraphy, which is consistent with the concept of the product.

4. Brand display

The overall layout is used to showcase the core highlights and brand philosophy of the product. The basic tone of this type of application product is long-term stable functions and mostly content maintenance, showcasing brand concepts and software interface functions.

What the NetEase Cloud Music opening screen guide page conveys to users is some of the product's personalized designs, where they can experience some features that other products don't have, allowing users to gain psychological satisfaction while enjoying music.

User guide format

1. Text + Illustration

The combination of text and illustrations is also one of the most common forms at present. Illustrations are mostly figurative, mainly using cartoon characters, scenes, photos, or large glass backgrounds to express the text content. The guide page designed in this way has a strong visual impact.

2. Page mask

It is usually only displayed when a user visits a page for the first time and will gradually disappear after the user clicks on it. It is used to emphasize and introduce the functional points of the current interface.

Mask guidance is a relatively strong guidance, which emphasizes the content that needs to be guided by directly covering the interface. Generally, the mask layer is semi-transparent. On this layer, various graphics are used to combine with the covered interface content to guide users to focus on important information. The mask-type floating layer cannot disappear automatically, but requires user operation (specified operation/unspecified operation) before it can disappear.

3. Dynamic effects and music

In addition to static display methods, APPs are also beginning to adopt some beautiful dynamic effect pages. Use animation on a single page, consider the order of each component, break the original silence, and make the page move. At the same time, combined with dynamic effects, you can consider the way to switch between pages, changing the default left and right sliding to up and down sliding or automatically switching to the next page after a few seconds. When browsing the guide page, you can try adding some music that matches the rhythm of the animation, which will be a more novel way.

4. Video display

After opening, it introduces products or conveys an idea by playing videos. This method is more common in life-recording applications, such as photography and sports applications, which convey a youthful, energetic, and positive attitude towards life.

5. Tips for guidance

(1) Bubble/floating layer type

Bubble/floating guidance is a light-weight but highly purposeful guidance method, usually a design pattern of semi-transparent floating layer combined with copywriting. Most floating modes have directional arrows, which can be used to prompt important functions or hide operations. It is usually non-modal and disappears automatically after being displayed for 3-5 seconds, causing less interference to users. Some important functions also use modal floating layers, which can only be hidden after the user's explicit operation.

(Bubble type)

(Floating layer)

(2) Pop-up window

This type of guidance will interrupt users from using the product, causing the greatest disturbance to users, and of course will be the most important to users. This type of guidance will not be closed until the user makes a choice. There are pure text descriptions, such as logging out, error prompt pop-ups...; there are also those accompanied by pictures, such as coupons on the homepage, event promotions , etc., and may also be accompanied by motion effects, which will make it less monotonous, interesting, and easy to accept.

(3) Small red dot/number + red dot

The most common ones are unread messages. As a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder, I can't help but click on it every time I see the little red dot. I believe most people will do this. This is to take advantage of the user's psychological effect to achieve the purpose of viewing the product.

What issues should we pay attention to when guiding users?

The above has classified the differences in the purpose and expression of the guide page. In the specific design, you must pay attention to some principles, which will make your design more attractive and better convey information.

1. Be brief and concise

Too much text will "interfere" with the normal usage process. The size of a mobile phone screen is limited, and if there is too much text, the page will often look crowded. It is best to display it through a page prototype with simple text descriptions, which can intuitively tell customers what the main functions of the APP are, making it simple and easy to understand.

2. Simple page design

There are many ways to design a guide page, but it is recommended to choose a simple design method, because if it is too complicated, it will not be able to highlight the key points. You can use color + flatness. This type of design should be the most common and simplest guide page design method. By using different background colors to display the content of each guide page, you can quickly catch the user's attention.

3. With a close or skip button

Adding a close or skip button is also a very important point in user experience. Some users will skip or ignore the guide page and enter the APP directly. If there is no close or skip button, it will obviously prevent users from entering the app, and the result will only be that users will close the app immediately. Therefore, when users want to enter the APP directly, being able to meet their requirements will give customers a good impression.

Summarize

Guidance is not a solution to design problems; it can only serve as a point-to-point auxiliary method.

The use of guidance should be reasonably selected according to the scenario. Interesting guidance design will add points to the product and enhance users' desire to explore new functions. However, user guidance needs to be done in moderation. Moderate guidance improves user experience, while excessive guidance will become a reason for users to complain or even abandon the product.