Every onboarding process has a clear objective: to help your users achieve their goals. Show them how your product solves their problems or empowers them to get what they need. It is a key tool to achieve a high user retention rate and improve their satisfaction with the product in the long term.

It is a resource to introduce users to a new product or new functionality. And in this case, the value of the content and the way we deliver it, as a story, from starting using the product to completing a goal, is critical.

In the end, an onboarding process is a narrative in which we show the user the value that the product provides and how it meets the expectations created during the acquisition process.
To ensure that onboarding is responsive to user needs, the process flow can be approached as the design of a self-contained product. Knowing what the user story is and what goals you need to achieve, we can design a narrative that guides him and shows him how to achieve those goals.

Many onboarding strategies focus on showing functionality, instead of teaching users what they could achieve using the product. For example, instead of showing a task automation functionality, such as a data report, we can focus on the time saved and the convenience of not needing a manual export on a regular basis.

Focusing the onboarding design starting from the content allows us to design a narrative that will take into account the objectives and needs of the users in the first place, and will allow us to execute the design of a flow focused on the user, instead of the product itself.

The narrative of an onboarding process is a framework, a way to control how we want our product to be perceived by the people who use it. All onboarding processes have a narrative, even if we have not previously defined it. That is why many times that narrative is not good. Especially if we have not been able to spend time thinking about it before designing.

There are a series of traits that we can use to assess the narrative that we are creating or that we have found. This narrative will not establish an adequate framework if:

- It focuses on the company, the product, or its features and functionality, rather than on the user and his needs and goals.
- It is not clear and does not easily define what can be achieved with the product and how it should be used.
- It lacks balance between abstraction and detail. If we focus on the big ideas, the people who use the product won't know how to make them happen. And if we pay too much attention to detail, we will lack the ideas that spin the narrative and give meaning to the concrete actions of the product.
- It lacks structure. All narratives need a clear structure, with a premise, an action, and an outcome, in that order. Starting with the outcome, for example, could be confusing.
- Create too many expectations. The narrative of the onboarding process must be realistic. Do not promise or present your product in a way that does not correspond to reality.
- It's too long. What the person going through the onboarding process really wants is to use your product. Guide you to show you the best way to use it to achieve your goals.

But don't show him a movie that's too long, which can later cause frustration because he won't know how to use it.

A proper onboarding narrative is focused on the people who are going to use the product and their needs. It is also important to know the context of these people, the problems they have and make sure they perceive the value of the product.

For that, user research will help determine the product´s use context. In other words, the situation in which the user is in before starting to use it. For example: every time I need to build a report, I need to manually download all the data, clean it and make graphs.

And also, the motivation to use the product. The need you have or the objective you are looking for when using your product.