Onboarding: Designing Welcoming First Experiences | UX Magazine

What is onboarding, and why is it important?

Most companies think that getting people to sign up is the ultimate challenge, but what about getting them oriented to your site and actually using it? That process of helping people get started is called onboarding, and it’s crucial that you give it the attention it deserves.
When left to their own devices in a new space without any sense of direction or purpose, many users can feel lost, overwhelmed, and confused about what they’re supposed to be doing there. The user might have arrived at your site from a link in an article, an organic search result, or on the recommendation of a friend. In essence, the user is taking a leap of faith that she will be able to achieve something on your site, and it’s your responsibility to shake her hand and show her the ropes when she gets there.

See the full article at uxmag.com

This is an important part of any site or product (although, this article is focused on software). It is the classic getting users started issue and how to address it.

echelon 2010 Singapore – June 1st & 2nd

Event Highlights: What to Expect From echelon 2010?

Asia’s leading web technology event: echelon2010 aims to be at the frontier of the web technology landscape, where the main focus will be in bringing together the top brass of the web technology industry from various parts of the startup eco-system to facilitate discussion on the hot topics in the web startup scene. The 2-day event will feature:

  • Keynote sessions from web entrepreneurs and thought leaders across the globe who will be sharing their personal journeys toward the path of entrepreneurship. For details on speakers, click here
  • Panel discussions on key issues faced by web technology startups, growth trends in the web space and discussions of the web startup ecosystem. For the schedule of the event, click here
  • Startups Exhibition . This time around, we are showcasing 50 startups around the region who will be demonstrating their products and prototype. For more info on startups, click here
  • Launch of 10 never-before-seen startups and their products
  • Networking sessions to facilitate dialogues between entrepreneurs, investors, industry mentors and professionals from all walks of life.
Echelon 2010 Site amiando.com

For those of you looking for somewhere to demo or launch, this might be a good event.

Redeye VC: After the Techcrunch Bump

2)  Virality — So many people misunderstand virality.  Virality is not “word of mouth”.  And having a product go viral is not easy — nor is it something you can just “sprinkle on a product” after creating it.  If making a product viral was as easy as adding a “share with your friends” button, there would be no reason for the $100 Billion advertising industry.  (I can see companies asking themselves — “let’s see, should we spend millions on advertising…or should we just add virality…Hmmm”).  I believe a viral product is one where a consumer’s basic usage of a site/product brings new users (and therefore additional utility) to the site/product.  Facebook, LinkedIn and Paypal are all great examples of viral products.  If you’re pitching your business, you should know your viral coefficient.  That is, how many new users get added virally from each additional user.  And if you can get your viral coefficient greater than 1.0, then you’ve built something really special. 

shared by a YC classmate