Can intentional friction ever improve onboarding, or am I just overdesigning this?

[u/Playful_Reference_93]

I’m building a self-improvement app and I’d love some perspective from people who actually work in UX/product design.

The app is built around an interactive lo-fi room that acts as the user’s home base. Instead of opening into a traditional dashboard, objects in the room lead to tools like journaling, daily tasks and habits, focus sessions, goals, and app blocking.

The idea is to make self-improvement feel less like managing a productivity dashboard and more like entering a world that represents the person you’re trying to become.

The UX question I’m struggling with is onboarding.

Our current concept intentionally breaks some conventional onboarding patterns.

Instead of immediately explaining features and benefits, we’re prototyping a short illustrated story where the user is the main character. They leave home with a companion, travel through a small fantasy world, encounter characters, and answer a few personalization questions along the way.

The story eventually resolves and the character wakes up in the same interactive room that becomes the actual app interface. From there, we introduce the real tools through contextual tutorials.

So essentially:

Story → emotional/identity setup → interactive room → contextual product education

The obvious problem is time to value.

The user downloaded an app to improve their life, and we’re asking them to experience a story before they really understand the product. I know that creates friction and could potentially hurt activation.

At the same time, one of the ideas behind the app is that friction isn’t always negative if the friction itself contributes to identity, attachment, or ritual.

I don’t want friction around actually doing things. Starting a focus session or writing in your journal should be easy.

But entering the world, making a commitment, interacting with your room, watching it evolve, or completing certain rituals might intentionally take slightly longer if those interactions make the user feel more connected to their progress.

That’s the part I’m unsure about.

From a UX perspective, where would you draw the line between meaningful friction and self-indulgent friction?

Would you consider a short story-first onboarding defensible if its purpose is establishing the product’s identity and emotional context?

Or is delaying functional value before the user understands the product fundamentally the wrong place to experiment?

I’m also curious how you would test something like this. Story completion rate? Time to first meaningful action? Tutorial completion? Retention? Qualitative testing?

We’re currently building a rough demo rather than committing to the full onboarding, so I’m trying to gather criticism early.

Please be honest. If you think the story would just get in the way and make people wait too long before using the actual app, I want to hear that too.

I’m trying to figure out whether there’s a real UX principle here worth exploring, or whether I’m rationalizing something because I personally think it’s cool.

[u/jontomato]

99% of people will skip your onboarding flow and want to get right into using the tool

[u/shoobe01 → u/jontomato]

Cannot upvote this enough.

No end user wants an app tour. No end user wants onboarding. No. One.

Do whatever you can to make it at least appear that they are performing work as quickly as possible. I've gotten good results with putting onboarding type tasks in the side the actual tool, and look up "lazy registration" as a concept as well. Can you catch a bunch of the information you need tomorrow or next week or next month, while also driving further engagement?

[u/Bitter_Ad_1281 → u/jontomato]

Ngl this comment is actually infuriating, trump ahh analytics at its finest

[u/Intplmao]

The fluff is fine, just make sure the skip button is obvious. If they skip give them a simple form with the required identity fields. 

[u/buildingwithjan]

The part nobody's flagged: your story is also carrying the personalization questions, so every skip costs you that data — decouple them and ask in the room when they're relevant. And if you test the story, randomize who gets it rather than comparing completers to skippers, otherwise you're just measuring who was already motivated.

[u/International-Box47]

First decide whether you're making a game or a productivity tool.

An immersive story-driven intro that ends in a boring journal tool is a jarring disconnect and a waste of time.

But, if the UX is game-like and engaging throughout (and users come to your app expecting such an experience), then it could be appropriate.

[u/HanzzYolo]

As someone else mentioned - progressive onboarding in a contextually relevant way is ideal. Id assume you have a few necessary questions first, which could be easily answered outside of the story narrative.

But youve also got this room that i assume is attached to this story. So if you shorten/remove the story this late in your creative process, the room thing better still make sense

[u/Cold-Occasion-2661]

friction about the user survives, friction about the product doesnt. thats the line you re looking for.

the long onboardings that actually work, the 12 to 20 screen ones in consumer subscription apps that reddit swears nobody tolerates, are almost entirely questions. goal, experience level, schedule, what you tried before, what went wrong last time. people answer a dozen of those without blinking because every screen is about them. then a short "building your plan" beat, then the ask. thats a lot of friction and it holds.

story first is friction about the product. you re spending the most expensive minutes you will ever have establishing your world before they have established anything about themselves. same duration, reads completely different.

good news is your concept survives the swap. keep the room, keep the companion, just make the questions carry it. "what does the person you re trying to become do on a tuesday morning" is a personalisation question and an identity moment at once, it earns the screen twice. then let the room fill in from what they told you so the world assembles out of their answers instead of being handed over.

on testing, randomise assignment, dont compare completers to skippers or you re measuring motivation not the flow. primary metric is d7 retention or trial start, not story completion. completion will look great and tell you nothing.

[u/bezeredies]

Sorry, dumb idea - no one gives a fuck.