Drench: A social media app that connects people in order to tak
A Social Media App
A social media app that connects people who live in the same city and share similar interests, to go take an action together. I redesigned the onboarding flow to refine our time to value (Aha-moment), resulting in a 50% growth in the sign-ups and app downloads.
The Challenge
Drench needed to address the gap in helping Nigerians find meaningful, goal-driven connections within their cities. The challenge was refining the onboarding process to reduce drop-offs and time to the AHA Moment, while designing an intuitive way to match users based on their interests and goals and ensuring trust for in-person meetups.
Old Solution Issues The problem with the old approach was that the onboarding process was too long and unengaging, failing to guide new users effectively to their first meaningful connection—the product's Aha Moment. Additionally, there was no focus on meaningful, goal-driven connections, as the previous matching algorithms often paired users with mismatched interests, leading to a 63% drop-off rate after initial interactions.
The Approach
Discover: To deeply understand the problem, I began with extensive research to identify user needs and behaviors. This included conducting 10 face-to-face user interviews to uncover pain points in the onboarding process and to explore what users valued in forming meaningful connections. Additionally, I performed market and competitor research, analyzing best practices in onboarding flows, particularly from apps in similar spaces like dating platforms, to identify effective strategies for reducing time-to-value and quickly engaging users.
Define: Using insights from user interviews and competitor analysis, I identified the key challenges in the existing onboarding flow. Analyzing data from existing drop-off points revealed specific areas of friction, such as overly complex steps and unclear calls to action. This helped define a clear problem statement: the need for a streamlined, intuitive onboarding experience focused on creating goal-driven connections
The Solution
The insights gathered from research directly shaped the design of the new onboarding steps, prioritizing simplicity, personalization, and efficiency.
User Interview Insights: From the user interviews, we learned that users often felt overwhelmed by lengthy registration processes. To address this, we streamlined onboarding into three focused steps: selecting primary goals and interests, completing a short profile, and immediately previewing potential matches. This reduced cognitive load while maintaining relevance.
Insights from Competitor Analysis: Competitor analysis revealed that successful apps, particularly dating platforms, prioritized delivering an Aha Moment quickly. Inspired by this, we designed an onboarding flow where users received their first match recommendations within five minutes of signing up, emphasizing immediate value.
Insights from user drop-off data: Drop-off data pinpointed areas of friction, such as unclear instructions and unnecessary fields. We eliminated redundant inputs, clarified tooltips for profile questions, and introduced visual progress indicators to keep users motivated. A conversational tone in the UI made the process feel more engaging and less transactional.
Design: By focusing on these key insights, the redesigned onboarding flow reduced time-to-value and set the stage for users to form meaningful connections aligned with their goals and interests.
The Result
The redesigned onboarding flow led to significant improvements across key metrics:
Drop-off Rate Reduction: The streamlined process reduced onboarding drop-offs by 50%, with more users completing all steps and moving directly into match recommendations.
Time to Aha Moment: Users experienced their first meaningful match within an average of 4.8 minutes, compared to 30 minutes previously, accelerating their engagement with the platform.
User Retention: First-week retention increased by 35%, as users found the platform more intuitive and rewarding from the start.
User Satisfaction: Post-onboarding surveys revealed that 82% of users found the process engaging and felt it effectively set them up for meaningful connections.
The new onboarding experience not only enhanced user engagement but also laid a stronger foundation for the platform’s mission to connect people with shared goals and interests.
