When I lived in Colombia and went shopping (in a mall for things like clothes) staff would jump on me and offer to be as helpful as possible. I absolutely hated it. I didnât want to be approached. I wanted to be left alone to explore and do my own thing in my own time.
I know how to shop, thank you very much.
I feel the same with community onboarding. I donât want or need it. I can find my own way through in my own time and in my own way.
Iâve been to many communities before. It will take time for me to adjust to the new environment, but Iâll get there in time.
Youâre onboarding, and especially your automated onboarding, puts me off.
Communities can be thoughtful and respectful about the onboarding experience.
Are you using the default Discourse bot? Youâre doing it wrong.
Are you crafting a unique onboarding experience that highlights unique community tools or features, most commonly requested resources for new users, or how to request help in the most expeditious manner? Youâre doing it right.
Good point that onboarding might not be for everyone, but it is still a very much-needed journey for new members. I think that is the beauty of good onboarding, if it is helpful to you then it can really make your experience pleasant and if you donât need it, then it isnât a requirement to follow all of the steps!
What would be interesting is to see your own individual community data behind the usage of Discord bot: âin X time frame, how many new users completed all steps suggested by the bot? in X time frame, how many new users ignored or exited the bot?â
Or if youâre @MattM, provide community data to Invision community owners: "in X time frame, how many users completed the onboarding progress?â
We started with a simple premise: âto onboard or not.â But I think the follow-up and better question should be, âfor my community strategy, how can I make the onboarding process more effective for my community objectives?â And that depends on community data to fine-tune the onboarding tactics over time.
@rosiesherry Not critiquing you at all LOL ! It was meant as a generic statement. If anything, youâve opened up an amazing discussion on inclusive design practices, on community strategy, and on the respect and privileges that we take and give from users.
The initial take for me is to open community builders minds to the fact that not everyone wants to be onboarded. And if they understand this, then more inclusive practices could be considered on how to include these people within the community over a longer period of time.
It doesnât have to be onboarding. Itâs probably more like @fabian said â if we look at community like a flywheel, we should be looking for opportunities everywhere to pull people in. Onboarding is just one potential way.
Onboarding can be quite annoying if itâs over automated or steps you through some of the basic functionality if you prefer self discovery and experimentation.
A few post registration prompts can be useful to set expectations and how to get help.
Spicy, but totally legitimate. This is right on par with âinstructionsâ or âtrainingâ for software. If you need to read a manual or watch videos to use the application, the application is not intuitively designed. Same thing with communities.
We all know how to talk with one another, how to be socially expressive, how to collaborate and communicate. Itâs an intrinsic human characteristic. But to be âonboardedâ to achieve a certain level of âadoptionâ on a community website? Something is off - either in the user experience or the information architecture or perhaps even the content itself.
I subscribe to the âLadders of Engagementâ or âEngagement Pyramidâ philosophy to community-building, and used this a lot when I was a Partner at a political campaigning and non-profit digital agency a decade ago. People have fundamental needs and capabilities of contributing at each major âtierâ of engagement, and you cannot ask more of these people at a certain level until you have met their basic needs. Visitors will only go so far to register, for example; you need to make sure that your website / platform / application / community / whatever meets the visitorâs needs easily so that the next-step ask â which should also be super-easy â isnât seen as a huge leap for people who choose to engage more.
Same thing with new members. You cannot expect brand new members to go through a mandatory onboarding or new member orientation, if it is a heavy handed request; new members are primarily going through self-orientation, observation and exploration, and situational contribution. To move them into an intensive community engagement process better suited to veterans or key influencers in your community will just drive them away, especially when there are so many (too many, perhaps!) friction-less alternative communities and experiences for time-limited people to choose from.
YesâŠand some people will instantly react that this is an âanti-onboardingâ spicy take, but really itâs just being mindful about the many different options and diverse needs of people.
I agree that it should be optional â no community is the same and we shouldnât make assumptions around user preferences as either CMs or product builders. Our philosophy as builders is âeverything behind a settingâ and I think thatâs important.
A learning community for young people and a professional community for community builders will have very different onboarding needs. Similarly, individuals in any group will have different needs and preferences.
Very much agreed here. It can be really subjective. I recently started a new community for a niche demo who arenât the most tech-savvy folks. Holding their hand and making it as seamless as possible is a big part of it in this case.
Ohhhhh in terms of automation do you think you would prefer something like:
Hello {Name}, would you like to go through our onboarding process or would you like to find your way around the community in your own time?"
Because I actually 100% agree with this and I think giving community members the option instead of forcing it is a good middle ground. I know some of this has already been talked about but Iâm here a bit late haha
Having a choice is interesting a I think would be good.
I think mostly there should be a place where people know they can go to get the latest on what is happening within the community.
In a very basic way Iâve been working towards this in Rosieland by keeping the /members page up to date with the latest things we are working on. Itâs a text page and is updated manually, but the idea is that hopefully members can always go there and know that it will be up to date.
And on that note, I think onboarding is the part at the beginning, things, projects, and activities in communities are always changing. Itâs not quite an âalways be onboardingâ angle, but more like members need to know where to go (perhaps have bookmark to a specific page) to find out what is happening.