Self-initiated project
5 days
2013
Design, digital
150 million
Challenge
Canva stakeholders have voiced dissatisfaction with the current user onboarding process, prompting a redesign initiative. The project aims to offer enhanced user benefits, clear initial steps for new users, and enriched features to boost sign-up and retention rates.
Results
The revamped onboarding successfully addressed usability issues, enhancing UX/UI design and fostering increased user adoption, engagement, and satisfaction. This underscores the importance of a well-designed welcoming flow for new users.
Additionally, the incorporation of personalisation and customisation features bolstered user engagement, resulting in higher retention rates.
Early Stage
Exploring the app I'm developing: The reference below is the sign-up journey as a new user in the Canva app. The app’s onboarding flow is pretty straightforward. However, I've noticed in when landing on the main feed, the 'You might want to try' feature is easily missed.
User Sentiments
I analysed app store reviews to understand current user pain points and needs, aiming to gauge sentiments and identify specific areas of struggle within the Canva app.
Survey
After reviewing app store feedback, I noticed that many comments didn't address users' initial experiences. Wanting to delve deeper into users' journeys and perceptions of Canva, I conducted a user survey, which garnered responses from 16 Canva users.
Hypothesis: The onboarding process fails to effectively engage users due to a lack of educational resources for learning how to use Canva.
Goal: To gain insight into users' experiences, pain points, needs, and desires related to Canva.
What I Did: I created a Google Form and asked several questions about users' overall experiences, first impressions, areas for improvement, and more regarding their experiences with using Canva.
Insights & Findings
Based on the survey findings I synthesized, I began segmenting my thoughts and insights into questions that delve deeper. For example, what are the main purposes of users using Canva? What do users need to familiarize themselves with on a new platform like Canva?
Exploring users' initial impressions using Canva: What are their needs in Canva's onboarding journey? Is it a guide on how to use Canva, or what features Canva has to offer, or something else? To understand what users find useful for their Canva experience, I proceeded to break down the responses I collected further as I dive deeper.
Ideation
Based on the responses, users' needs were categorised into three main buckets: better guidance, valuable features, and enhanced engagement. These elements are crucial for improving overall user experience, sign-ups, and retention.
Prioritisation
Better Guidance
Insight: Although there is a guide on how to use Canva using the 'Play with Canva' feature, many users did not seem to acknowledge its existence when newly onboarded. From the survey, quite a few users mentioned that some guidance on how to use Canva would be useful during their onboarding journey.
Improvement: To draw more attention to the first-time user experience with the 'Play with Canva' feature. Making it more obvious can improve its discovery and prevent users from feeling lost when they first land on the homepage. Users should be able to choose to skip this process, but the function should not disappear immediately. New users often take time to explore an unfamiliar platform, especially when there are many templates and tools to try out. Leaving the 'Play with Canva' feature available for a period of time, e.g., 1-3 days, will be beneficial in case users wish to revisit it later.
User Enrichment
Insight: Users often resort to external sources like YouTube, Google, or friends to learn how to design in Canva, which can be cumbersome.
Improvement: Utilise loading or exporting screens within the app to provide users with short design tips and tricks. As an example, in the process from template selection to design and export, two potential instances (loading a template and saving an image) could feature shortcuts or quick tips for users during loading.
Simple, Convenient & Personalised
Current State: In Canva, colour suggestions are selected based on the image or theme set in the chosen template. When a user chooses another colour, they must pair it with a complementary colour themselves. This process can be time-consuming and stressful, especially for users with limited design experience.
Improvement: Introduce the ability to access previously saved colour palettes (e.g., brand colours). Additionally, suggest alternative colour palettes using artificial intelligence to detect contrast or offer pre-set colour sets for users to choose from, simplifying the process.
Wireframing
Emphasizing the onboarding process, I drafted wireframes to illustrate the flow:
Sign up as a new user: Prompt users to specify their main purpose for using Canva in order for Canva to recommend more relevant content and templates based on this input. Additionally, a welcome screen featuring a walkthrough of the top three main features.
Tour option (if users opt for a tour): Highlight 3 main points that provide the highest value:
Template Discovery: Where to find templates
Design Customisation: Where to create custom designs
Guidance Access: Where to seek assistance and guidance
Hi-fi Mock Ups
In the design, I've effectively addressed user needs, wants, pluspoints and a guide from the surveys conducted by focusing on key aspects:
User Needs (screen 4): Recognising the prevalent convenience-seeking behaviour among users, the onboarding journey now prominently showcases quick access to templates and efficient design creation tools, enhancing ease of use and productivity.
User Wants (screen 5): In addressing user wants, the focus is on facilitating easy setup and providing simple design options to swiftly complete projects.
User Pluspoints (screen 6): As for user plus points, these are features or functionalities that provide users with added benefits or leverage in using Canva. By offering these additional capabilities, Canva enhances its value proposition and provides users with more flexibility and creativity in their design projects.
User Guide (screen 7): From the survey, first-time users mentioned they usually do not know what to do, an optional guide will help to address this.
Optional tour: Showing highlighted features (screen 8-11): Critical features previously overlooked by first-time users are now prominently showcased during onboarding if users opted for a quick tour, reducing confusion and enhancing user engagement from the outset.
User Testing
After testing the redesigned onboarding flow with users, I noticed that highlighting the templates section in home significantly increased conversion rates of user designs, helping users understand how to use Canva more effectively.
Observations during user tests: Upon initial use, users were unsure of where to start.
After improvement: Users quickly noticed highlighted features and began designing, making it faster to familiarise themselves with the templates available in Canva.
Results
The redesigned onboarding effectively tackled usability concerns, resulting in a more intuitive and user-friendly experience. Improved UX/UI design fostered greater user adoption, engagement, and satisfaction, highlighting the significance of a well-crafted welcoming flow for new users.
