Contextual

Category: Feature Announcements

  • Onboarding: the tip of the engagement iceberg

    Onboarding: the tip of the engagement iceberg

    We all love to talk about “sprints”.

    Mature Product teams know that user engagement is a marathon. Startups and under-resourced Product teams think in sprints. They often only consider the “immediate” that neglects the true lifecycle of their (soon to be successful) App.

    “We just need a home page guide”

    “We only want a Carousel for our Apps splash page”.

    These are common opinions and definitely part of the Apps journey to success. But the sprint perspective believes the “first 5 minutes” is a panacea for user retention. The “first 5 minutes” is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Beneath the surface is the real volume of the iceberg. Here lies the massive breadth of engagement activities that includes:

    1. Onboarding
    2. Feature Announcements
    3. Feature Discovery
    4. Guides
    5. Tips
    6. Training videos
    7. Self-Service help and docs
    8. Tooltips
    9. Nudges
    10. Goal Completion
    11. Re-engagement Emails and Push
    12. Feedback Questions and Surveys
    13. NPS or CSAT

    Plugging the leaky bucket

    Growth comes with Progressive Onboarding. The way to get DEEPER ENGAGEMENT & RETENTION is to progressively guide users to “aha moments”. The MAGIC of deeper engagement is getting users to understand and interact with:

    • Your primary use-case in the onboarding process
    • Secondary functions and uses down- played to achieve your primary goal
    • Nudging at the right time to go further
    • Providing contextual help when a user needs it.

     

    Beneath the Surface

    This post covers the first 4 of 13 listed engagement activities. We give screenshot examples of how Product Teams have deepened engagement.

    Example 1 – Onboarding

    For Examples of “Onboarding” refer to some other posts.

    Example 2 – Feature Announcements

    Here Google introduces a new feature in two different ways. One is a grand announcement and tour. The second if a contextual prompt to nudge the user at the moment of maximum impact.

    google presso - welcome to office editing

    Example 3 – Feature Discovery

    Vimeo has been around for years and needed to catchup with the cool-kids like Loom who were making video/screen recording simply. With the advent of Covid-19 and work-from-home the need to have RECORDED zoom sessions arose. This was sitting under the hood until I “discovered” it.

    The second screenshot surfaces a feature that you might easily miss.

    The 3rd from Twitter is amazing because I never knew your could Bookmark tweets. I use it all the time now!

    zoom to vimeo - prompt

    see who is viewing the page 2

    Example 4 -Guides

    Using a crypto wallet is a new experience, not for the faint-hearted. Metamask do a good job in walking the new user through important fields and actions.












    Next time…more iceberg!

    In the next posts, we’ll continue with the next group of engagement methods:

    1. Tips
    2. Training videos
    3. Self-Service help and docs
    4. Tooltips
    5. Nudges
    6. Goal Completion
    7. Re-engagement Emails and Push
    8. Feedback Questions and Surveys
    9. NPS or CSAT
  • App Leader’s Tips and Popups

    App Leader’s Tips and Popups

    How is it that some apps nail user engagement? What looks so easy is the result of a lot of product measurement and fine tuning.

    The reason why mobile tips, tooltips and guides work is because designers often hide features away to avoid clutter. What you can show on a sidebar (or top menu) in a Desktop App is often not best to show on mobile due to limited screen real-estate or differing layout.

    Successful Apps always work by optimizing feature uptake. Successful Apps eventually add more features that need explanation – this post we have a look at what tips and guides some big players have been doing in 2021. (all of these screencaps are from just the last week or two).

    Twitter

    You could forgive the twitter team for sitting back, sipping on a Sightglass latte. Or perhaps you imagine them freaking out about Clubhouse and rushing to launch Twitter Spaces. But some part of the team are quietly optimizing user’s understanding of how the app works.

    As you can see here, they are testing 2 tips at once. I didn’t think about the bookmark idea before, so kudos to them.

    Twitter-Tip-Example

    Google Calendar

    A nice new feature would not be known by users unless accompanied by a Feature Announcement – the call-to-action “Go to settings” is a perfect example of giving the user the option to uptake that feature. You can do this easily with Contextual and you can measure the uptake.

    Gcal-Popup-Example

    eBay

    eBay benefit if they can encourage us to save our searches. You know you will get inApp reminders, price-drops, emails all based on your stated-interest.

    A latte sipping product manager might think that the “❤️ Save this search” is prominent enough but kudos to this product manager for leaving nothing to chance.

    eBay-Tip-Example

    Calendly

    Calendly may not be as big as the other Goliath’s but you can see Feature Announcements are a great way to deepen the usage of the product. Regardless of whether its mobile apps or mobile web, tips can help users comprehend all the capabilities of your App. As I mentioned in the starting paragraphs: in mobile much is hidden and that is exactly why tips, tours, guides are even more powerful – targeted to right-user-right-time.

    Calendly-Tip-Example