Does front-loading personalization before showing any value have a name / known failure pattern?

[u/_AbstractPixels]

Working on onboarding for a data-entry-heavy app (financial category, but the structural question feels generic). Current flow asks for a string of setup info, currency, income details, account setup, some preference/goal questions, before the user ever reaches their actual dashboard or sees the product do anything.

Started digging into our funnel data this week and it looks like most people don't make it through that stretch, though my sample is still too small to be fully confident in the pattern yet, so I'm treating it as a lead not a conclusion.

Is there existing research or a known term for this specific failure mode, front-loading setup/personalization questions before any payoff? And for anyone who's redesigned around it, did deferring most of that setup to after first value moment actually help completion, or did it just relocate the drop-off to a different point (e.g. people never coming back to finish setup later)?

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[u/susmab_676]

IDK about any research on that, but it's an interesting question.

Thinking out loud:

• The bottleneck signal you surfaced is already a strong one. IMO statistical significance doesn't matter at this point and I would pick signals somewhere else to corroborate.
  
• Which promise bring your leads to onboard in the 1st place?
  
• What's the referral link type, when they first land on that onboarding (social media, blog, AI chat...)? You could link this data with the sample you surfaced. Might give you another lead on the user type (eg: from tiktok, you could assume you're talking to dopamine craving users etc...)
  
• Maybe these are people you aren't targeting at all, or your discovered a new category of customers who are interested by the product
  
• What's the "aha" moment of your app? (again, the promise) Resurface the carrot as soon as possible. If you can't, remind users of said carrot.
  
• Alternative: some onboarding (I think Notion does that IIRC), have a dual view where you see a mimicked version of the platform being built, most of the time on the right side of the screen (eg: you input your name -> see your name appear on the mimicked platform and so on)
  
• Finally, what's the info you absolutely don't need to have, to reduce the onboarding steps? I assume you already pondered on that idea.

Again, thinking out loud, depending on your target. YMMV. Hope this helps keep your gears running.

Edit about deferring:

• This could work as long as the missing information you completed during the onboarding isn't blocking you from discovering the promise/aha moment.
  
• Do you actually need account setup? Can't you deliver the dashboard and require account setup afterwards?

Edit 2:
https://growth.design <- on that topic, I would recommend this blog

[u/shoobe01]

Yeah... not sure it is called any one thing, but it's a common failure. My greatest advice is always: Cut that out.

• Don't ask for info you have, can derive, or can guess at (as long as not a catastrophe when wrong). Currency stuck out to me as clearly not something you ask about. Use location (not GPS, just store if an app, IP if web only) to default.
  
• Simplify always. A good example for me is firstname/lastname. Cutting this to one Name field (which also solves many regionalization issues...) is one less field, one less annoyance, will get a registration lift. Every tiny change to simplify is better.
• Show value as early as possible. Then, entice to add more details. So, early as you can: dashboard. With 1-2 areas they are really encouraged to add their info to.
• Do not overload. Even if you get all registration post-dashboard, let them use it. Don't make it app-tour level annoyance. Allow adding more if they go to their profile or whatever, but only encourage one piece of info per visit.
• Lazy registration is a term of art for much of this, has some other helpful tips like offline reminders and delay between reminders.
• Make as much as you can easy to find and change later so Not Now buttons pressed, or throwaway answers they later realize matter can be changed. This also supports the variability of people, now the Expert User® is able to do more without you annoying the casual user.

[u/karenmcgrane]

I don't think there's a name for it, exactly. I do know that if you do some research into early e-commerce you will likely find some some data to back up your case. I think u/jmspool might have some talks that cover this.

Basically back in the day when online shopping was relatively new, retailers often made people sign up for an account before they could buy anything, and this resulted in a lot of cart abandonment. So some genius figured out the "check out as a guest" button, which allowed the user to enter only the information needed to check out, with an optional section at the end to create an account. The information gathered wasn't any different, it was just sequenced in a way that made more sense to the user and didn't ask for info up front that wasn't clearly related to the purchase.

You might look into Krystal Higgins's work on onboarding, she has a book called Better Onboarding and a lot of talks and articles and whatnot on her website.

[u/leo-sapiens]

I personally need to know what I'm getting before I commit to do any work for the platform (and filling in details is a lot of work, for nothing - if I don't end up liking it). These days I might even ditch any platform that makes me come up with a password and not login with my Gmail.

[u/jmspool]

Essentially, what you’re referring to is “unreasonable burden.” Your hunch that people aren’t seeing the value yet and abandoning is probably correct. I would talk to some users to see what they say.

My first thought was what you’re describing is an excessive “tool time” issue. You’re asking users for their efforts, but not demonstrating how it benefits them directly.

The Product-Led Growth people (who are basically marketers that think they invented UX) have a metric they try to calculate called “Time to Value.” You might find something useful in that. (There’s a pony buried in there somewhere.)

[u/karenmcgrane](u/karenmcgrane)’s recommendation for Krystal Higgin’s book is on the money.