GitLab New User Onboarding — The Explorer Experience UX Strategy
Onboarding Stages
- Start (UX strategy issue (placeholder)
- First mile (UX Strategy issue)
- Continuous onboarding (UX strategy issue)
The Problem
In a perfect world, we would have an onboarding experience which all users would go through and complete successfully depending on their style of learning and experience with the product. Until we reach that point, there will always be users who have a different preference to how they want to onboard onto GitLab and learn new things.
There currently is a group of users being left out from the onboarding strategy work, those which choose to skip our current prompts and onboarding information just to explore and figure things out themselves. As we don't have much information on them, this could be a valuable problem area to explore further into, and see if there is any additional onboarding work that needs to be done. We should still put on a focus on making their exploration the best experience possible, and nudge them in the right directions in the ways that make sense to them.
Who are these users that are opting out of optional onboarding guidance?
There will need to be more research done into this area to validate it is an actual problem to be solved, but initially we expect users who have the Explorer mindset fall under one of these two categories:
- A user who has used GitLab prior, and feel they don't need to follow any onboarding guidance. They feel they know what to do, but they still may need a refresher or tips on new features they had never used. That being said, it's important not to get in the way of their set up.
- A user who is a type of learner who prefers to learn by exploring and figuring things out by themselves (Googling for answers, exploring docs, naturally exploring GitLab). In this case how do we understand where they are going when they drop off of the onboarding flow, and how do we show them the value of GitLab in the way that makes most sense to them. Are they dropping off because the onboarding flow doesn't resonate with the order of the work they are doing?
** We will also need some data on which type of user is the most common in this scenario.
These users can fall into any of the following Personas:
Open questions about the Explorers:
- What percentage of our new users are skipping onboarding prompts and jumping straight into their work?
- What percentage of our new are partially completing Onboarding tasks?
- What percentage of our new users are dismissing onboarding entry points, or ignoring them as they come up?
- Do these users struggle to get up to speed with their work, compared to those who go through onboarding?
- Where are these users getting their information, if not from the onboarding prompts? Are they using google? Our docs?
- Why are they skipping onboarding prompts? Do they feel it's not the right type of learning for them, or other reasons?
- What do these users have to say about their first few weeks on GitLab?
As they relate to the business:
- Are users/teams that go through guided onboarding more likely to convert?
- Do they use more DevOps stages?
- Do they invite more additional users and do it more quickly?
Mental Models Joining GitLab:
User Goals:
The Existing User:
I want to get started with GitLab quickly, as I have already worked with GitLab at a prior company/by myself, and feel I am confident enough to not need onboarding help.
The New Explorer:
I want to get started with GitLab by learning what features matter most to me by myself, either through external research, trial and error or pure exploration.