Case Study: Onboarding Flow
In 2024, I helped a telehealth app revamp their onboarding screens to improve the user experience and account creation rate.
THE CHALLENGE
When this telehealth service was first launched, the only way for users to create an account was after downloading a mobile app. However, this flow created challenges for marketing and users alike. The marketing analytics team used UTM parameters to track where users were coming from, but this approach could not attribute app downloads or anything further down-funnel to the original traffic source. Meanwhile, for users encountering the service for the first time, being asked to stop and download an app before they had invested anything into it was distracting and off-putting, leading many to bounce before receiving the medical care they needed.
When the marketing team started running Google Adwords campaigns for user acquisition, having an onboarding flow on the web instead of just in-app became critical, so engineering pulled together a bare-bones version based on what already existed for another of the company's apps. However, because the copy and design were not optimized for this particular audience, the new account creation flow was awkward and confusing.
An onboarding experience tailored for this specific audience was needed to improve account creation rate.
MY ROLE
As the content designer on the project, I worked with a product designer and product manager to wireframe the new account creation flow, wrote copy for the new screens that carried the branding and value propositions from initial marketing webpages into the onboarding experience, then coordinated with both internal stakeholders and representatives from our partner organization to ensure all language was correct and legally compliant.
THE PROCESS
The first version of the web onboarding flow engineering put together with existing copy looked like this:
A series of screens showing the account creation flow on web for a telehealth app
The one element I most wanted to bring into the new onboarding screens was an understanding of why users were being asked to do certain things: provide an email address, download an app and so on. Given that this hospital system used to have a telehealth service that was available on the web, this app would be a new experience for many users and clarity was critical. In as few words as possible, I provided quick justifications in conjunction with all instructional copy.
The other key feature that I wanted to bring into the copy was a feeling of warmth and reassurance. Users searching for a telehealth service via a Google search are often suffering from an urgent medical need and feeling stressed; my goal was to provide an empathetic approach and help them get where they needed to go as smoothly as possible.
However, there was also a wide variety of copy the extended product team wanted to include in this relatively small amount of space: reinforcement of the hospital system's branding, data on the speed and effectiveness of the app, instructions on how to contact the support team in case users got stuck and more. I collaborated with my product manager and designer to produce several copy and design variants for internal review and feedback until we settled on a final version to share with the hospital system's team for their feedback as well.
Ultimately, due to having to appease so many different interests, the copy on the final version of the screens ended up longer than was ideal, and friendly transition language I wanted to include needed to be stripped away to make space for additional copy that senior executives at the company insisted we include. My original headline for the first screen, for instance, was simply "Welcome to Cedars-Sinai Connect."
THE SOLUTION
Still, we were able to address all of my concerns with the copy from the original version, producing a clearer and more compelling account creation experience:
A series of screens showing the new and improved account creation flow on web for a telehealth app
THE OUTCOME
The new onboarding flow increased the account creation rate by 20.6%, and for the audience coming in through Google Ads specifically, the Cost Per Account Created decreased by 30.9%. The new flow was so successful that the product team replaced the existing in-app account creation process with this copy and design as well!