Permanent onboarding for Dropbox Plus in the mobile app
Research-based iteration that increased retention by nearly 9%, demonstrating the value of a content-led approach for onboarding and nurture
What
A permanent, returnable onboarding experience that mobile app users could access from their account tab
Why
Foundational research revealed that:
62% of Dropbox Plus mobile app users skipped through onboarding, which was non-returnable
60% of free trial users did not convert to a paid subscription
Of those who did convert, only 30% remained as a Plus paying customer after 12 months
The #1 reason folks gave for churning?
They weren’t using the features they were paying for—mainly because they didn’t understand or weren’t even aware of them.
Every 1% improvement in total paid-customer retention (TPCR) would lead to a $250K lift to Android annual revenue, and could be replicated in iOS for triple the impact, so we were eager to find a way to improve conversion and retention.
The hypothesis: if more users understood how the features they were trialing or paying for could help them, more users would want to retain their subscriptions.
Phase 1
Process
We created a testable proof-of-concept on a very short timeline (less than 1 sprint). Many aspects of the UX were frozen, and my work was mainly down-the-line copywriting:
Distill the substance of these big features, most of which we’ve never talked about in the mobile app, into crisp, single-line descriptions.
I arranged features based partly on usage statistics and mostly on internal prioritization and talk-about docs.
Design
Basic entry point text, brief descriptions, and no thematic organization
Results
Data science tl; dr
53% of respondents said Phase 1 helped them discover new value from Plus, though retention and churn remained flat.
UX takeaway
Customers see value in this offering, but we need to iterate to make the experience more relevant and impactful.
Phase 2
Content design goals
Better understand how customers think about features, so that we can present them in the clearest and most helpful way, with a thematic structure to the experience
Make the text entry point on the account tab more engaging and clearer
Offer the opportunity to compare free plan and paid plan features side-by-side to let folks immediately understand what they’re getting for their money
Hitching up the research wagon
Design team-led research
Leaning into my past UXR ops experience, I created open and closed card-sort tests to identify:
The interest and importance ascribed to each feature (to influence position on page)
How potential users would group features and then label those groups (to influence creation of themes)
From the test results, my design partner and I identified some common themes in perceptions and understandings of the 12 features. I then created 3 thematic groupings, arranging features in each group according to fresh insights about their relevance during onboarding.
Additional research insights
Qualitative rapid testing and survey responses revealed:
Customers wanted a bit more text to better understand their features without having to navigate to a new screen.
→ I deepened feature description text and refined phrasing based on additional messaging tests.
Customers wanted to compare their paid plan features to those of the free plan.
→ We created a “Compare” tab, where Basic and Plus features are laid out side-by-side.
Some customers wanted to compare plan details, vs just a binary “feature included/not included” display.
→ We created an option to toggle between binary view and details view in the “Compare” tab.
Design
More engaging entry point text to match the question users had been asking themselves
/ deeper feature descriptions / 3-part thematic structure / a “compare” tab
Results
78% of respondents reported that our Phase 2 design was helpful, compared to 53% for Phase 1
Usage of features increased
Over the course of 2 months (late Feb–late April), we saw an increase in retention of nearly 9%, which was projected to net ~50% of the mobile app growth revenue goal for 2022