Intro

Reducing time-to-value for new Elevate users

Early activation was strongly tied to long-term adoption, but many new users struggled to complete setup without Customer Success support. This created slower expansion opportunities, higher onboarding costs, and inconsistent adoption across accounts.

ROLE:

UX Designer

TEAM:

5 Engineers and 1 PM

TIME:

3 months

GOAL:

Increase adoption, decrease time-to-value and reduce Customer Success dependency.

TLDR

My role

I led the UX work end to end, from research and problem framing to concept testing, delivery, and post-launch measurement.

Key decision

Instead of redesigning the full setup flow, we focused on a guided onboarding layer that worked within existing technical constraints.

Outcome

The solution reduced time-to-value by 46% and saved Customer Success around 2 hours per onboarding.

Research

Uncovering Onboarding Friction

8 usability tests, 12 interviews, and analytics revealed that unclear concepts and setup friction slowed time-to-value. Here’s what I found:

1. “Where do I start?”

Setup was spread across too many places, making the onboarding experience feel fragmented and inefficient.

2. “How much is left?”

Users lacked progress visibility, making it hard to understand what was completed, what remained, and how close they were to finishing.

3. “Why is this taking so long?”

Unclear concepts and manual setup steps made onboarding feel time-consuming, causing some users to abandon the flow halfway through.

Ideation

Turning Onboarding Barriers Into Decisions

After testing multiple concepts against user needs and aligned with engineering and Customer Success I narrowed down the solutions to directly address the key onboarding barriers without requiring a full backend rebuild.

Tradeoffs

Auto-completion vs. feasibility

Auto-completing existing setup would reduce effort, but was too costly. We chose visible manual progress as a feasible first step.

Ideal flow vs. existing architecture

Reworking setup would solve more, but required deeper product changes. We shipped an onboarding layer within current constraints.

Education vs. scope

Explaining every concept would improve understanding, but expand scope. We prioritized activation first and left deeper education for later.

1. Solving “Where do I start?”

Role-based onboarding and auto-completion was not feasible. But a centralized setup guide helped users on the right path

Using the existing help center pattern made implementation faster and created a scalable onboarding model for other product areas.

2. Solving “How much is left?”

Users lost momentum when they could not see their progress. I added a step-by-step progress tracker to show what was completed, what remained, and where to go next.

Progress visibility helped users stay oriented throughout setup.

3. Solving “Why is this taking so long?”

Manual setup was slow and concept-heavy. I introduced templates and guided dialogs to reduce effort, explain concepts in context, and keep customization flexible.

Guided dialogs helped users complete setup with less uncertainty.

Outcome

From Friction to Faster Value

46% reduction in time-to-value

Users understood the setup sequence faster, tracked progress more clearly, and completed key actions with less uncertainty.

2 hours saved per onboarding

Customer Success managers saved around 2 hours per onboarding.

Adoption

The design was recently implemented, and adoption metrics are still being tracked.

Learnings

This project reinforced how onboarding design can improve both user experience and operational efficiency. Next, I’d explore progressive onboarding tailored to user needs instead of one linear flow.