The UX Pattern That Ruined Our Retention
Bluell AB
When we redesigned our onboarding experience, we had clear goals: reduce user friction, improve early engagement, and align the flow with modern UX practices.
On paper, everything made sense.
Our team had reviewed best-in-class onboarding flows, analyzed competitors, and selected what seemed to be a proven solution: a progressive, step-by-step tutorial that introduced each feature in sequence.
We believed it would help users understand the product better and lead to improved long-term retention.
But the results told a very different story.
Phase 1: The Assumption
Our initial data showed that nearly 28% of new users were exiting the product within their first session. We assumed the cause was a lack of guidance—users were not seeing the product’s full value early on.
To address this, we implemented a progressive disclosure pattern, where key features were introduced one at a time through modal tooltips, locked steps, and guided flows. The design was refined, the content carefully written, and the interactions thoroughly tested.
Upon release, the short-term data looked promising. Day-1 activation improved. New users were completing the onboarding process at a higher rate. Internally, we viewed this as a successful launch.
But the outcome over time told another story.
Phase 2: The Unexpected Decline
Within three weeks, our week-2 and week-4 retention rates dropped significantly. The initial engagement gains were not translating into long-term use.
Our support team began receiving vague messages:
“I signed up recently but didn’t have time to explore everything.”
“Looks great, but I’ll come back to it later.”
Many of these users never returned.
Concerned, we turned to behavior analytics and reviewed hundreds of session replays. What we saw was consistent and concerning.
Users were becoming frustrated with the rigid structure of the new flow. The onboarding sequence was controlling the experience rather than enhancing it. Users couldn’t freely navigate. Skipping steps was not possible. Tooltips interrupted natural exploration.
It became clear: the UX pattern we had adopted was limiting autonomy and causing drop-off.
Phase 3: Re-evaluating the Experience
We realized that our approach had optimized for completion of the onboarding flow, but not for actual engagement with the product.
The new experience was too linear. It didn’t allow users to explore based on their individual goals or levels of familiarity. First-time users felt overwhelmed midway. Experienced users felt restricted and disengaged.
Instead of encouraging discovery, the design unintentionally created friction. The lesson was becoming evident: just because a pattern is popular or widely used does not make it universally effective.
Phase 4: The Change
We began rolling back the rigid tutorial and replacing it with a more flexible onboarding experience:
Users could now skip guidance steps entirely if they preferred.
Tooltips were contextual and optional.
Key actions were introduced based on behavior, not in a fixed sequence.
The interface allowed for autonomous exploration from the start.
We also updated our tracking to focus less on short-term completions and more on long-term engagement milestones. Within six weeks, our week-2 retention rate improved by over 40%, and user satisfaction scores gradually increased.
Conclusion
What we learned is simple, but important is user experience patterns must be aligned with user intent and context, not driven by aesthetics or trends. What appears effective in theory, or in another product, can easily underperform in yours if misaligned with actual user behavior.
In our case, a well-meaning UX enhancement led to short-term gains and long-term losses. By prioritizing control over flexibility, we unintentionally reduced engagement. If you're designing onboarding for your product, ask not just what users should see, but how they want to experience it. Sometimes the most effective interface is the one that gives users space to learn on their own terms. Learn more about creating intentional experiences with our UI/UX Design approach.
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