ONBOARDING LAB: HOW SUPERHUMAN AND REFORGE CRAFT THE FIRST EXPERIENCE

Summary from the TLDR Marketing newsletter

Superhuman revamped its onboarding process by moving from a partial-screen tutorial with users' real inboxes to a full-screen experience with a synthetic inbox, resulting in improved keyboard shortcut adoption and user activation. It also made key UI actions like "Compose" and "Search" more discoverable for new users, increasing engagement with these features. Reforge simplified its onboarding from a complex 12-step process to just two steps, focusing on personalization and a more intuitive homepage, which led to a boost in user engagement and customer satisfaction. Both companies demonstrated that reducing friction and guiding users clearly can significantly improve product adoption and user experience.