Article · 15 min read

Slack: an In-depth User Onboarding Teardown

Serra Alban · UserGuiding Free Beginner

Screen by screen through the most copied onboarding flow in software, including the empty states and Slackbot conversation, and honest about where the approach fails for less curious users.

  • Slack teaches contextually inside the live product rather than running a full walkthrough.
  • New users are made to actually do it: create a channel, invite someone, send a direct message.
  • Empty states carry the tips, and Slack leans on them more than most SaaS products.
  • Weakness noted: the approach rewards curious users and leaves passive ones behind.
Open on userguiding.com ↗

It answers 3 questions

  1. What should a brand new user see in the first minute after they sign up?
  2. Almost nobody finishes our onboarding flow. Is that an onboarding problem or a product problem?
  3. Slack's onboarding gets copied constantly. What is it actually doing, step by step?

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