Onboarding Flow

Lead Product Designer | Weave | August 2025

Weave's scheduling feature had a discovery problem. Only 37% of users viewed the Schedule page, and just 2.4% of those created appointments. Large dental practices needed multi-location scheduling, but most users never realized the feature existed.

Goal: Increase schedule feature discovery and adoption through guided onboarding that walks users through initial setup.

My Approach

I designed a step-by-step wizard that walked users through scheduling setup: adding providers, appointment types, and configuring essentials. The flow launched in August 2025.

We tracked completion rates and began monitoring how completers engaged with scheduling compared to users who skipped onboarding. By November, we'd added appointment creation tracking to measure full impact.

The Results

The impact was dramatic. Users who completed onboarding were 30X more likely to create appointments than those who didn't (26.7% vs 0.9%).

Engagement depth:

• 4.1X longer on Schedule page (1h 48m vs 26m)

• 7.2X more page views (87 vs 12 per user)

• 19X more appointments created (17.5 vs 0.9 per user)

100% of onboarding completers discovered the feature, compared to just 37% without onboarding. The wizard solved the discovery problem completely.

Interestingly, users who adopted scheduling without onboarding averaged 99 appointments each—higher than onboarding completers' 66. These self-selected power users represented less than 1% of the population.

The Challenge

Only 0.96% of users (415 out of 43,182) completed the wizard despite its proven effectiveness. The feature worked, but 42,767 users just never experienced it.

Conservative projections showed the opportunity: reaching 10% completion would generate 68,000 additional appointments (146% increase). At 25%, that jumps to 181,000 appointments (389% increase).

For users who also use Weave's payments product, each completed appointment directly impacts ARR through appointment-related transactions. More appointments created means more payment processing opportunities.

The problem wasn't the wizard. It was getting users to experience it.

Next Steps

The path forward is clear: make the wizard unavoidable.

Phase 1: Immediate wins - Add prominent onboarding prompts on the Schedule page for non-completers. Test different messaging to find what drives completion. Target: 5% completion rate among Schedule viewers within 30 days.

Phase 2: Activation - Improve the post-wizard experience with a "Create Your First Appointment" flow that uses a dummy patient for low-stakes practice. This removes the fear of making mistakes with real data. Send follow-up notifications if users complete onboarding but don't create appointments. Target: increase creator rate from 27% to 40%.

Phase 3: Scale - Expand prompts beyond Schedule page to main navigation and dashboard. Launch email campaigns to re-engage the 42,767 existing users. Target: double overall completion rate to 2% within 90 days.

The ROI is significant. Every 1% increase in completion generates approximately 7,500 additional appointments. At our current conversion rates, reaching 10% completion would transform the feature from niche to mainstream. For users with Weave Payments, this would drive substantial increases in transaction-based ARR.

Bottom Line

Discovery drives adoption more than design quality. The wizard proved exceptional at helping users who experienced it. 100% discovered the feature, and 27% became active creators. But 99% of users never saw it.

This fundamentally changed how I prioritize work. I now treat feature discovery as seriously as feature design, building prominent entry points before perfecting functionality. I measure completion rates as a primary success metric alongside engagement, because even the best features fail if users never find them.

Getting users through the door matters more than perfecting what's inside. A great feature that 1% discover is less valuable than a good feature that 25% discover.