Guidelines for Onboarding : Developing guidelines by testing a process for onboarding.

Abstract: Smartphones and applications are becoming more and more popular. Although, the user knowledge varies. Onboarding has been described in other previous studies as a tool for costumers to get a better understanding of applications. This thesis aims to develop guidelines for onboarding by investigating previous studies and by comparing different applications. By investigating to what extent onboarding is beneficial for an application, the question of if it is worth the time and effort for a company to develop an onboarding is discussed. A hi- fi onboarding prototype will be developed to be able to test the guidelines. Simplicity, knowledge of the user, smooth navigation and user satisfaction are a few things that were kept in mind from previous studies when developing the guidelines. To be able to develop guidelines, questions regarding mobile devices, application developing, user behaviour and manuals have also been studied. Interviews combined with observations allowed for an analysis of the guidelines by conducting an A/B test. One group of test subjects received an application with onboarding, and the other group received the same application without onboarding. The result of the A/B test showed that onboarding helped the user to find functions that could be considered difficult to locate. The test also showed that many people often skip onboarding, but people that complete the onboarding process gets a better understanding of the application faster. Guidelines for an efficient development of an onboarding are presented. In conclusion, onboarding is a tool that should be utilized if the developer aims to allow as many users as possible to understand the full potential of the application as fast as possible.