{"id":13757,"date":"2022-08-18T20:17:28","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T20:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/userpilot.com\/blog\/interactive-onboarding\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T12:45:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T12:45:30","slug":"interactive-onboarding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/userpilot.com\/blog\/interactive-onboarding\/","title":{"rendered":"Interactive Onboarding 101: How to Create Better User Onboarding Experiences in SaaS"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is an onboarding process?<\/h2>\n

An onboarding process is a broad term in SaaS, which describes a series of activities designed to help both existing and new users get value from your product. Many people think onboarding is purely about new users, but that’s not the case: an onboarding strategy should extend beyond that (i.e. to feature adoption).<\/p>\n

\"customer-onboarding-process-userpilot\"<\/picture>
Customer onboarding process<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What is an interactive onboarding experience?<\/h2>\n

Interactive onboarding experiences are user-driven and the actions they take directly influence the onboarding flows they’ll go through.<\/p>\n

It can be described as a \u201cchoose your own adventure\u201d model. A popular example of this is the experimental film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, in which the viewer is given the illusion of choice.<\/p>\n

Product tours: the opposite of an interactive onboarding experience<\/h2>\n

Many SaaS companies offer product tours as part of their onboarding process. But they have several key drawbacks:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • The \u201cone size fits all\u201d approach is simply not relevant to most users who only want to see the features that matter to them.<\/li>\n
  • A lack of personalized content makes users feel disengaged and disheartened.<\/li>\n
  • Being told <\/em>how to do something isn’t the same as trying it yourself: it’s frustrating to watch a boring product tour when you want to start using it!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    \"Screenshot<\/picture>
    Users want speedy, effective onboarding – give them what they want!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    How is an interactive onboarding strategy different? It’s laser-focused on helping users to experience value as quickly as humanly possible. Interactive onboarding achieves this by showing the right parts of the product at the right time to the right groups of users. That is the key to successful product adoption.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n