Checklists

Engaging, step-by-step guides that help users quickly master tasks and features within your app

What are in-app checklists?

User onboarding checklists are interactive patterns designed to guide and engage users during their initial interaction with a product. They often contain multiple items or CTAs a user is encouraged to complete. They use UI elements such as a progress indicator bar and checks or strike-throughs to indicate completion or progression. 

These help streamline complex multistep onboarding processes, rewarding user progress, and providing targeted support, effectively enhancing user activation and retention by leveraging psychological principles like completion, reward, and clarity​

Use cases for checklists

  • User Onboarding: providing clear steps for successfully setting up or implementing a new product. Also, helpful for new users being added to an existing company account. 

  • Re-onboarding: helping a re-activated user re-familiarize themselves with recent changes or updates.

  • Customization: encouraging users to complete their profile or increase their product customization to help drive more value.

  • Challenges and Rewards: highlighting new use cases or additional actions users can take to become more competent and potentially offering rewards for doing so.

Best practices for checklists

  • 1 Start with the Checklist open or show a “welcome state” so that users discover the checklist (our benchmarks study indicated that a lot of users don’t open a closed checklist, suggesting a discovery issue)
  • 2 Users are likely to complete ~5 items from a checklist, so be selective in what to include; you can include more or offer a secondary checklist once items are completed
  • 3 Make the first item(s) easy to complete (or potentially start with the first already completed) to avoid the “cold start problem” and offer some built-in momentum to users
  • 4 Articulate the benefit or value of the items included so users are motivated to complete them
  • 5 Mark items completed based on user activity within the app rather than just by clicking or starting the items

Examples of great checklists

Recommended reading 🤓

5 Ways to Create Effective In-App User Onboarding Checklists

User onboarding checklists can be a vital part of guiding your users to find value in your product. Let's go over what they are, what they're good for, and how to make great checklists of your own.
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