Best User Onboarding Practices For EdTech Companies

How Prime EdTech Companies Method Onboarding

Ever questioned how EdTech firms deal with onboarding? Do they depend on checklists, guides, or take a special strategy solely to assist customers get began?

On this article, we’ll discover the assorted consumer onboarding supplies EdTech firms use, determine rising developments, and see how they measure up towards practices in different sectors.

Analyzing the onboarding flows of EdTech firms helps uncover recurring patterns and greatest practices, providing insights into what works, what’s customary within the trade, and what may be lacking.

Understanding how these firms introduce their merchandise to customers makes it simpler to guage completely different consumer and product onboarding methods and their sensible purposes.

Let’s get began!

360Learning’s Onboarding Expertise

360Learning, a platform designed for collaborative studying, takes a structured strategy to onboarding new customers.

After signing up, customers are instantly greeted with a brief survey geared toward understanding their wants and meant use circumstances.

As a substitute of relying solely on conventional onboarding strategies, 360Learning integrates its onboarding expertise into the very first significant motion inside the platform—making a course.

This manner, customers naturally change into acquainted with the platform whereas concurrently making progress towards their targets.

Within the course creation interface, contextual ideas seem immediately within the content material part, eliminating the intimidation of a clean slate and guiding customers by means of the writing course of.

Nevertheless, 360Learning does not rely solely on embedded directions—it additionally employs tooltips for added steering. Whereas embedded data gives area for detailed explanations, an excessive amount of of it might probably overwhelm customers.

Tooltips, then again, mix a number of directions in a visually distinct format, drawing customers’ consideration with out cluttering the UI, identical to the instance under.

Tooltips like this one function a extra compact answer, merging smaller bits of knowledge collectively in an easy-to-digest format.

Additionally they assist direct consumer consideration extra successfully by standing out towards the interface’s background, guaranteeing that key steering is not missed.

Past tutorial components, 360Learning enhances its onboarding course of with gamification.

Each time customers create or full a course—or obtain one other significant milestone—the platform reinforces progress with celebratory pop-ups.

Moreover, customers earn badges, which function motivation to proceed participating with the platform. The badge system features a progress tracker, serving to customers see their journey and the subsequent milestones they should attain, like the instance under.

Synthesia’s Onboarding Expertise

Synthesia, an AI-driven video creation platform, follows a structured onboarding course of designed to get customers up and working shortly.

The method begins with a seven-question onboarding survey, which can appear in depth, however all questions are multiple-choice and simple to reply. Customers present details about their web site, use case, firm measurement, and extra.

Every query seems in a separate modal, guaranteeing a clean and targeted expertise. A progress bar is seen, however the complete variety of questions is not explicitly said, leaving customers to estimate how a lot is left.

After finishing the survey, customers are directed straight into video creation. They’re requested to specify their subject, viewers, and content material particulars.

Alternatively, they’ll add an current define as a substitute of filling within the kind manually.

As soon as customers hit “Create video”, Synthesia generates a preview and takes them to the video editor.

Contained in the editor, a four-step product tour introduces important options, together with the voice library, textual content enhancing instruments, and avatars.

Not like the survey, this guided tour features a numbered progress indicator, making it clear what number of steps are concerned.

The tooltips are visually participating and embody concise textual content with supporting photos to make the expertise extra intuitive.

Synthesia additionally makes use of overlay modals inside onboarding to encourage customers to improve.

A modal highlights the advantages of upgrading to a premium plan, displaying a transparent worth proposition with three key promoting factors. Accompanying visuals illustrate premium options, making it simpler for customers to understand the benefits.

SafetyCulture’s Onboarding Expertise

SafetyCulture, a office operations platform, simplifies onboarding to assist customers enhance security, high quality, and effectivity by means of audits, inspections, and reporting.

Like different EdTech platforms, SafetyCulture begins onboarding with a quick welcome survey. Customers reply questions on their trade, firm measurement, and use case earlier than being guided to their first “Aha!” second—making a coaching course.

If customers aren’t able to dive in instantly, they’ve the choice to skip this step and discover the platform first.

As soon as contained in the platform, customers encounter an embedded onboarding guidelines.

Not like pop-up checklists that could be dismissed, SafetyCulture’s guidelines stays seen on the high of the display screen. It’s massive, and never buried in sidebars or hidden inside settings.

The guidelines additionally features a progress bar that begins with {a partially} accomplished share, motivating customers to proceed.

To additional assist customers, SafetyCulture gives interactive walkthroughs.

These step-by-step guides are designed to be brief and to-the-point, displaying the full variety of steps within the course of and together with skip buttons for customers preferring to maneuver by means of the platform at their very own tempo.

Whereas the tooltips utilized in these tutorials are comparatively easy in design, they continue to be efficient by maintaining the knowledge concise and clear.

In sure circumstances, SafetyCulture makes use of overlay modals to information customers by means of crucial steps.

The left aspect of the modal shows a real-time preview, whereas the suitable aspect comprises customization settings.

The onboarding modal strategy permits customers to right away see the influence of their modifications; these modals current clear directions alongside real-time previews, making complicated duties extra approachable.

For a extra in-depth assessment, take a look at the complete research and Miro board, which additionally contains insights into Articulate and Graphy’s onboarding flows.

Poor Onboarding Experiences From Main EdTech Platforms

W3Schools

W3Schools is a widely known coding and net growth platform that gives tutorials, programs, and certificates packages. Let’s test its onboarding course of.

Upon signing up, customers are greeted with a welcome modal that contains a informal, emoji-filled introduction to the platform’s key options.

The message is pleasant and fascinating, however the extreme use of emojis won’t attraction to everybody.

Moreover, the modal instantly encourages customers to ask their mates and academics to the platform—earlier than they’ve even had an opportunity to discover any options. This early request for promotion can really feel off-putting, particularly for brand spanking new customers who have not but shaped an opinion concerning the platform.

Past that, the title of the modal—“What’s New?“—may be complicated.

A brand new consumer may count on a welcome message or an introduction to the platform, however as a substitute, the wording makes it unclear whether or not it is a function replace, a promotional message, or one thing else solely.

This lack of readability units the tone for the remainder of the onboarding expertise, which is equally imprecise and unstructured.

As soon as contained in the platform, customers will discover that in-app steering could be very restricted.

W3Schools doesn’t present a product tour, an onboarding guidelines, and even tooltips to assist customers perceive the place key options are situated or how they perform.

This lack of course continues when navigating to the My Studying web page, the place customers are left solely on their very own, with no hotspots, no prompts, and no in-app explanations.

For occasion, when trying to create a studying path, customers are met with a clean display screen that gives no steering on the best way to construction their studying journey.

The platform may have supplied suggestions on ability development, a instructed order for finishing classes, or perhaps a few tips about setting sensible studying targets. As a substitute, customers should depend on trial and error to determine the best way to profit from the function.

Curiously, W3Schools does embody tooltips and modals—however solely after customers have already managed to finish sure duties on their very own.

This is an instance.

This strategy implies that those that wrestle to navigate the UI or arrange a studying path might by no means obtain the mandatory steering in any respect.

For instance, after a consumer efficiently begins a tutorial, a modal (just like the one above) seems to introduce key navigation buttons and a progress bar.

The modal additionally references a function referred to as the “Pathfinder Navigator”, which is supposedly designed to assist customers monitor their studying journey.

Nevertheless, the reason lacks readability—the modal doesn’t point out which button represents the Pathfinder Navigator or clarify what it truly does. This imprecise messaging leaves customers with extra questions than solutions.

Total, W3Schools’ onboarding course of is minimal and unstructured, leaving new customers to determine the platform largely on their very own. When steering is supplied, it typically lacks the mandatory element to be really useful.

As a substitute of providing a transparent, supportive onboarding expertise, the platform assumes that customers will be capable of navigate and perceive its options with out help—an assumption that will result in frustration and drop-offs.

Key Insights On EdTech Onboarding Methods

Segmentation Drives The Want For Extra Onboarding Supplies

User segmentation performs an important position in shaping how EdTech firms construction their onboarding experiences. Companies with extremely segmented consumer bases have a tendency to include extra interactive components equivalent to checklists, guides, and hotspots.

This is sensible—personalised experiences are more practical at encouraging product adoption.

By segmenting customers, firms can be certain that the suitable onboarding supplies attain the suitable customers on the proper time.

This strategy is very crucial for EdTech platforms that serve each college students and academics, as their wants, out there options, and even interface layouts can differ considerably.

For a platform to be efficiently adopted, each teams should really feel snug navigating it and clearly perceive its worth. That is why delivering tailor-made onboarding supplies for academics and college students is crucial in driving long-term engagement.

EdTech Companies Prioritize Structured In-App Studying

A noticeable pattern amongst EdTech firms is their desire for organizing onboarding assets in a scientific approach. The usage of onboarding checklists and useful resource facilities is especially prevalent, with guidelines adoption nearing 50% and useful resource facilities exceeding that mark. In distinction, hotspot utilization is barely decrease, hovering round 40%.

This implies that the best way data is structured and made accessible to customers is simply as crucial as the standard of the content material itself.

Somewhat than relying solely on scattered tooltips or pop-ups, EdTech firms concentrate on constructing structured useful resource facilities, guaranteeing that customers can simply discover the knowledge they want after they want it.

Best Practices In EdTech Onboarding Are…

Personalizing the consumer expertise by means of onboarding surveys and sustaining engagement with visible components and gamification methods.

Many EdTech firms collect insights about new customers originally of their journey, permitting them to tailor the onboarding stream to particular person wants.

Even platforms that don’t rely closely on tooltips, hotspots, or product walkthroughs nonetheless prioritize onboarding surveys as a approach to perceive their customers and supply related steering.

Whereas onboarding surveys will not be essentially extra vital than tooltips or interactive guides, they typically function the muse of an efficient onboarding expertise—particularly for EdTech merchandise.

In any case, with no clear understanding of consumer wants, it is almost not possible to supply significant assist.

One other pattern amongst EdTech platforms is using visible components and gamification to maintain customers engaged.

Excessive-contrast tooltips, brightly coloured buttons, and visually distinct call-to-action prompts assist draw consideration to key onboarding steps.

Many firms additionally embody participating visuals equivalent to GIFs and screenshots to make onboarding extra intuitive.

Some platforms take engagement a step additional by including animations and gamified components, equivalent to celebratory confetti results, achievement badges, and scoreboards.

These components make the onboarding course of really feel extra interactive and rewarding, encouraging customers to remain engaged with the product.

To Sum Up…

Sure consumer onboarding and product adoption methods, equivalent to onboarding checklists and consumer segmentation, have change into customary practices amongst EdTech firms to enhance each the educating and studying expertise. These approaches assist be certain that college students and educators can simply navigate platform options and interact with instruments that greatest assist their wants.

On the identical time, strategies like in-app surveys and hotspots, which give real-time suggestions and context-sensitive steering, are nonetheless evolving as firms refine their onboarding experiences.

By implementing these methods with the assistance of consumer onboarding software program or in-house strategies, EdTech platforms can acquire deeper insights into the distinctive targets, challenges, and preferences of each college students and educators. This permits them to create personalised studying paths, research plans, and tailor-made function suggestions that improve consumer engagement and retention.

Because the trade continues to develop, extra EdTech firms are prone to undertake these approaches, refining their onboarding experiences to satisfy evolving consumer expectations and trade requirements.

Article initially written by Ceren Kurban.