8 Different Types of User Onboarding UX You Should Know

In HR, "types of onboarding" means programmes for new hires; employee onboarding is a different discipline. This post covers the software kind: the eight UX patterns products use to guide their users. Lists of these patterns are easy to find. What they rarely tell you is which type to use when, so the table below sorts each one by the moment it serves and the way it usually fails.

User onboarding is the continuous process of showing new and existing users your product's value, inside and outside the product. It shapes a user's first impression and their feelings about the product long after, which is why it affects conversion and retention. What makes a flow work is the patterns it's built from: the micro-interactions, the design and the timing.

What are the types of user onboarding?

There are eight common types of user onboarding UX, in three groups: first-run, contextual and announcement. Choose by the user's moment, not by the pattern:

These groups go by other names around the web, but the jobs they do are the same.

What is first-run onboarding?

First-run onboarding is the set of patterns that show a new user around the product in their first sessions: product tours, walkthroughs and checklists. Product tours are still the most familiar of them, and the most overused, though more products now lean on contextual patterns instead.

1. Product tours

A product tour is a sequence of steps that shows a new user where the main parts of a product are. Tours are what most of us expect on an unfamiliar platform, as app tutorials on mobile and on web and desktop products, but they're easy to get wrong.

Users don't sit through long tours or long copy. A working rule: if a tour needs more than five or six steps to cover the product, split it into a short tour plus a checklist or contextual tips. How to create a product tour walks through the steps.

At the time of the screenshot, Candu's product tour had six steps and covered only the essential parts of the interface. Each step had a progress bar, a skip button and a "Got it!" button, a small piece of microcopy that nudges the user on.

2. Walkthroughs

A walkthrough shows how something works, where a product tour shows where it is. The two are often confused, and walkthroughs share the same risk: when they're long or complicated, users abandon or skip them and completion drops, even in products complex enough to need one.

Candy Crush's first walkthrough is a good example. It jumps around the board, but with purpose: a mascot points at the candies, the player makes each move to learn it, and a large Skip button stays on screen throughout.

3. Checklists

A checklist lists the setup tasks a new user should complete and lets them work through it at their own pace. Because users manage it themselves, a checklist turns onboarding into something they choose to do. A good one sends users to the key parts of the product, covers the common first actions and shows a clearly visible progress indicator.

At the time of the screenshot, Asana's checklist sat on the dashboard with five steps. Clicking a step took users to the matching page in the app, and finishing the list brought a congratulatory message with unicorns and rainbows.

What is contextual onboarding?

Contextual onboarding is guidance that appears where and when the user needs it, a few clicks into the product rather than at the start. Every onboarding experience happens in some context, even a product tour, but these patterns point at one specific part of the screen, during the first sessions or months later.

4. Tooltips

A tooltip is a short message attached to one element on the screen. Tooltips are the standard way to explain a single element, and they're also the building blocks of product tours, walkthroughs and interactive guides. That flexibility is why poorly designed contextual onboarding is so common.

A good tooltip, or tooltip sequence, has short copy, an image when the copy runs long or the steps pile up, and above all a way to dismiss it. See tooltip examples for more.

Figma's shortcut tooltip is a good standalone example. It suggested cropping an image faster by holding ⌘ while resizing, showed the action in an image, and offered a "Got it" button and a close icon.

5. Hotspots

A hotspot is a small pulsing marker that draws the eye to an element and opens a tip only when clicked. Hotspots are less common than tooltips, and they're the friendlier option, because the user decides whether to engage. They work inside first-run flows and on their own.

At the time of the screenshot, Typeform used hotspots in a demo form to nudge new users towards key features and onboarding tasks. Each hotspot opened a tooltip-like tip with a "Got it" button, so users could confirm they'd taken the point in.

6. Feature guides

A feature guide introduces a new or changed feature in context, ideally when the user is already near it. Feature guides work like product tours or walkthroughs, only narrower: one feature, a few steps.

Trello's guide to its redesigned navigation opened with a modal, ran a four-step tooltip tour on a single page with short, clear copy, and closed by asking users whether to switch to the new navigation now or later. It's a good model of onboarding in context.

What is announcement onboarding?

Announcement onboarding tells existing users about something new and points them to it, rather than teaching a task. It works like an in-app message, usually arrives well after signup, and has to catch attention without getting in the way.

7. Announcement modals

An announcement modal is a pop-up window that tells users something new about the product they're using. Welcome modals, feature modals and most other modals that keep current users up to date count as announcement modals. Use one when the news is worth interrupting for; UI modal examples shows how other products do it.

Figma's modal introducing a better copy and paste worked as a gate: its "Explore playground" button opened the new-feature onboarding in a practice file. The copy had a clear hierarchy, and the visual design matched it.

8. Banners

A banner, or announcement bar, is a strip across the top of the interface that announces something without blocking it. After modals, banners are the most common announcement pattern, because they don't demand immediate attention. They suit webinars, milestones, discount codes and anything else that can wait.

At the time of the screenshot, Intercom used a banner at the top of its interface to promote enhancements to its product tours. The banner's colour matched the interface in a different hue, so users noticed it without being stopped.

Are the "5 C's of onboarding" a type of user onboarding?

No. The four Cs (compliance, clarification, culture and connection), sometimes extended to five, are an HR framework for new employees, popularised by Talya Bauer's guide for the SHRM Foundation. They describe what a new hire needs from an employer, not how software guides a user, so they sit alongside the patterns above rather than among them.

Are there more types of user onboarding?

Yes. These eight are the most used, not the only ones: empty states, onboarding emails, resource centres and signup surveys all onboard users too, and some products need patterns of their own. To find what fits yours, look at how real products combine them in the onboarding inspirations library.