Connect For Animals (CFA)
Guiding animal advocates to platform features
Background
Connect For Animals unifies people who want to create a better world for animals through events, volunteer, connection, and action opportunities that can help animal rights one click at a time.
Responsibilities
Address the pain points that users have when onboarding and signing up for the platform while keeping in mind of specific location compliance guidelines.
Role
UX/UI Designer & Researcher
Date
May - September 2024
(Shipped September 2024)
PROBLEM
Only 1 in 10 users created profiles
Analytics revealed that only ~10% of users who signed up for CFA created profiles, significantly reducing their access to the platform’s core features. This is an area of concern because this pain point limits the platform’s ability to foster a connected and active community, leading to user churn.
EXPLORING THE PROBLEM
How might we improve the user onboarding process while maintaining user trust?
To have a deeper understanding of how we can improve Connect For Animals' (CFA) sign-up and onboarding process, a competitive analysis is conducted on other platforms that have similar profile features as CFA. This allowed us to find the best practices and identify patterns in successful onboarding processes.
RESEARCH GOAL #1
🤝 Build reliability in the sign-up and onboarding experience
RESEARCH GOAL #2
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS INSIGHTS
Users often need guidance:
Guidance is key: Users benefit from gentle nudges and clear prompts during profile creation.
Minimize complexity: Making users find how to make profiles on their own will only cause friction and loss of interest.
Leverage familiarity: Social media integrations streamline onboarding and improve adoption rates.
OLD USER FLOW
Disjointed screens and access to full features
USABILITY TESTING, IDEATION, AND DESIGN CHOICES
Executing feedback to build user trust
We conducted two usability tests with four users from our target group.
KEY FINDINGS
Location input hesitation
Users frequently hesitated and asked questions upon reaching the location input step, indicating that this section needed clearer instructions or a simplified format.
Optional profile creation
Users expressed a desire for an option to skip profile creation if it wasn’t mandatory, showing a need for flexibility in the onboarding process.
Perceived length of process
Upon reaching later stages of profile creation, users voiced concerns about the process length, suggesting that the onboarding process might benefit from visual progress indicators or reduced steps.
Everyone wants things fast
Some users asked if there's a way to integrate their social media or email into signing up and making profiles. While this is not possible at the moment because of the stage the platform is in, it is kept in mind for future product development.
CONSTRAINTS
Location compliances and user exclusion
Due to data protection laws and CFA being at an early stage of its release, full access to CFA was limited to users in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. We iterated on new location onboarding screens if location is skipped at sign-up to reduce possible feelings of user exclusion while aligning with compliance requirements.
NEW FLOW
Showcasing profile values and addressing hesitancy
Based on usability testing feedback, the new user flow aims to balance user autonomy while adhering to similar flows as industry standards. We also introduced a profile value screen to demonstrate the purpose of profiles so users are more inclined to complete it during onboarding.
SOLUTION
An improved onboarding process
Addressing location input hesitation: Location tooltip
Re-worded the location header to be more friendly and added a tooltip so users are aware of why we need this information from them.
Nudging for profile creation: Profile value
Sharing a profile of a real user as an example allows the user to empathize more with the idea of creating a profile.
Bonus: Option to opt-out of profile creation (7) and progress bars (1) are added to align better with Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics.
Location compliancy guardrail: Extra location onboarding screen if question is skipped in the beginning
CFA was in beta-mode during this stage and only allowed users to sign-up in very specific locations of the world.
Shortened profile creation screen
We minimized profile details needed to focus on what most affects access to platform features and interactivity.
Community guidelines at the end
Reminds users of values to keep in mind once they have access to the full platform features.
IMPACT
What are the results?
This was my first project with Connect For Animals and I'm very grateful for the outcome of my research and proposed designs. It was very rewarding to see my suggested iterations come to life on a product that's used by a community that I value.
