New users do not want a manual. They want a first win. Great onboarding feels less like instruction and more like hospitality.
Imagine walking into someone’s home for the first time. Before you have even taken off your coat, the host hands you a thick manual explaining every room, every appliance, and every house rule.
You would want to leave.
Yet that is exactly how many digital products greet new users. Long product tours. Endless tooltips. Five screens of features before anyone has done a single useful thing.
Samuel Hulick, the founder of UserOnboard, changed the way I think about this moment. His central idea is that people are not really looking for your product. They are looking for a better version of themselves, and your product is simply the way they get there. Onboarding, in his view, is the work of helping them become that person as quickly as possible.
That reframe shifts everything.
Onboarding is not about explaining your product. It is about helping someone succeed with it.
Hulick also points out that one of the biggest mistakes teams make is getting in a new user’s way when they are trying to get started. A lecture, however well intended, is still an obstacle.
Here is how I approach onboarding now.
First, define the first meaningful win. What is the moment when a new user thinks, this is useful? Creating a first project. Sending a first message. Everything in onboarding should lead toward that moment.
Second, teach in context. Explain a feature at the moment someone needs it, not before. Guidance that appears at the right time feels like help. Guidance that appears too early feels like homework.
Third, ask only for what you need. Every extra field on a sign up form delays the first win. Additional details can be collected later, once trust exists.
Fourth, design empty states with care. A blank screen is an invitation. Use it to show people what is possible and how to begin.
Fifth, celebrate progress. Small acknowledgments of success build confidence and make people want to continue.
A great first impression feels less like instruction and more like hospitality.
Restaurateur Danny Meyer describes this beautifully in Setting the Table. “Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you.”
Good onboarding happens for your users. It welcomes them, guides them gently, and gets out of the way so they can do what they came to do.
