Self-Service Onboarding
Virtana Cloud Cost Management
The brief: product-led growth
As part of Virtana’s Product-Led Growth (PLG) strategy, we needed to enable potential customers to sign-up for a free evaluation version of the product.
The challenge: customers can't find the value
We started this effort with no sign-on flow and no experience with PLG.
I did some research and recommended we implement Pendo so we would be able to track users through key points in the onboarding flow and provide in-product guides as needed.
The tracking was essential as it helped us catch early bugs in the sign-up flow and gave us the visibility to see where people dropped off.
What I did: discovery and iterative improvements
I led the design team through the product design of the initial onboarding flow and its subsequent improvements.
I introduced Pendo and led the effort to instrument the product and track usage.
After the initial workflow was developed, I performed a heuristic evaluation that highlighted key issues with slow emails and confusing password requirements.
I ran user interviews and unmoderated usability testing that highlighted the need for marketing content in the product to convince users it was worth connecting their data.
Finally, I worked with product management and engineering to prioritize improvements.
Key tools and methods
Pendo and Excel
Heuristic Evaluation
Customer interviews & usability testing
Outcome
We doubled the number of successful activations in the first 8 months, where activations were defined as accounts that had successfully connected a data source.
How we got there
A combination of qualitative and quantitative research, heuristic evaluation and iterative improvements streamlined the funnel to ensure more prospective customers could find value.
Clear password requirements
The poor set password experience led to losing 12% of signups to what should be a straightforward part of the funnel.
After improving the experience, the number of users who moved past this step reached 100%.
Tracked Onboarding Funnel Every Month
I tracked each month’s sign-ups through each phase of the sign-up process to track trends and changes over time as we made improvements.
Usage tracking showed users consistently dropping at the set password step.
Heuristic Evaluation
I captured screenshots and notes from my heuristic evaluation in Miro in order to walk the team through the experience and communicate my recommendations.
The implementation did not include any password requirements up front and had a poorly formatted error message that was only shown after attempting to set a password. I used these screenshots and the usage data to make the case to product management and engineering that this needed to be fixed and ideally implemented as originally designed. After this was fixed, usage tracking showed that 100% of users completed this step month after month.
Strong Blank Page Content
Adding in-product marketing content to sell why users should add their data sources and complete activation.
User Research
I ran moderated and unmoderated usability tests that revealed the need to have marketing content that explained product capabilities and gave users a reason to want to complete the on-boarding process. I worked with my team to design eye-catching and compelling content that explained key product capabilities with a clear call-to-action to complete setup.
Implementation
Engineering priorities were focused on features, so to get this done I worked with engineering to incorporate these improvements alongside our efforts to update to the new branding.
Iterative Improvements
This case study includes only a couple friction-points found and addressed. Continually monitoring usage helped identify bugs and other issues that got in the way of our users "climbing the mountain" and trying a new product.
Other Case Studies
Actionable Cloud Cost Recommendations
A rapid product redesign that ensured customers could actually reduce public cloud costs.
Read Case Study
Visualizing Network Fabric Topologies at Scale
A patented information visualization design for Cisco's Data Center Network Manager.
Read Case Study
Interested in learning more?
Contact me at kora@korabongen.com