Onboarding Redesign with Boosting Retention and Reducing Drop-off

Onboarding Drop-off

-15%

User Activation

+10%

Retention Day 1

+7%

ARPU

+10%

Due to NDA all data was hidden and represents as an example close to real one

Industry, Business Model

Social Network, B2C

Company

Hily

App Store

Google play

Role

Senior Product Designer

Skills

Product Design

Interactive Prototyping

User Research & Testing

Interaction & Motion Design

Timeframe

9 months through non-stop hypothesis testing, validation, and iteration

Team

2 Product Designers

Product Analyst

Product Manager

3 Developers

2 QA

Hily is a global dating platform with over 35M users worldwide. It operates in a high-load, data-sensitive environment, managing real-time matches, chats, and content uploads while maintaining strict compliance with privacy regulations.

Overview

Following a major rebrand campaign, our team focused on enhancing the first-time user experience to deliver a smooth, engaging, and trustworthy onboarding journey.

As a Product Designer, I led both user and analytical research to identify key pain points and opportunities for improvement. I translated these insights into design solutions aimed at optimizing user flows and ensuring that every interaction felt intuitive, efficient, and enjoyable.

Business Goal

Reduce onboarding drop-off with following grow in user activation and retention

Product Goal

Guide users to complete their profiles and engage within the first session. Build early trust through clearer communication of safety and value

Constraints We Respect

Technical Constraints

A large legacy codebase limited the speed and flexibility of testing new ideas and hypotheses.

High technical effort extended time-to-market, requiring careful prioritization.

Users Sensitivity

Dating app users are highly sensitive to the information requested, directly affecting Retention, Revenue, and Activation.

Over half of new users distrust dating apps due to concerns about scams and harassment, making transparent communication and precise copy critical.

Business & Resource Constraints

Some hypotheses were deprioritized due to low potential impact on KPIs or high development costs.

Limited development resources required focusing on features with the highest ROI.
Cross-team dependencies (marketing, legal, data analytics) occasionally slowed delivery timelines

Regulatory & Market Constraints

Strict compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations shaped onboarding flows and data collection.

Competitive market pressure demanded rapid iteration to stay ahead of rival app features.

GDPR

COMPLIANT

CCPA

COMPLIANT

Analytics First

Onboarding Funnel

Due to NDA all data was hidden and represents as an example close to real one

We observed that the main drop-off occurred at the top of the onboarding funnel, so we focused our efforts on improving those steps.

Average Time Spent

Due to NDA all data was hidden and represents as an example close to real one

Most users spend significant time on the photo step, making it an ideal point observe user behavior.

Additionally, we found that some steps require noticeably more effort from users to complete. So we decided to collect additional insights from research phase for specific steps

“User interviews don’t reveal behavior — they reveal stories. Anyone who builds on stories instead of data loses the game.”

I treat interviews with cold skepticism. People rarely act the way they claim. They rationalize, exaggerate, or simply don’t know their own behavior. Listening is useful — believing is dangerous. Only data validates reality.

Study Flow

Interview Questions

How did users engage with onboarding?

Did they perceive Hily as a safe place?

How complicated was it to upload photos?

Did they find all the information relevant and necessary to start using the app?

And many other questions we wanted to explore.

Throughout the sessions, we also observed users reactions and how quickly they moved through the flow.

So we collect insights and start with Ideation process

Ideation / Brainstorming

We mapped user pains and insights into opportunity areas
Generated multiple “How Might We…” questions to reframe problems

Brainstormed ideas collaboratively — even the “crazy” ones

Prioritized ideas with Prioritization Matrix

Then it goes to Exploration phase

Competitor Research

Analyzed top dating apps (Top 10 list) focusing on onboarding & profile creation
Explored trust-building mechanics (safety cues, verification flows, photo moderation)
Compared photo upload UX patterns and friction points
Identified hidden UX tactics and engagement loops competitors use
Extracted best practices & gaps to turn into opportunities

Then we start to play with Concepts

Concepts

With all founded insights and ideas from competitors research we start with our own concepts.

Crafted multiple directions addressing trust, engagement, and usability
Visualized early concepts as simple as we can
Assessed each concept by impact vs. effort to focus on high-value solutions
Prepared a shortlist of concepts for prototyping and user testing

Concepts + Some reference flows from other apps

What’s good / what’s bad

Learnings and Opportunities

Prioritization Matrix

One of the session with user (Total 60 sessions for the whole period)

Prototyping & Testing

For the prototyping I have used Figma to easily paste prototypes to Maze (User Testing platform)

Prototype is optimized for Maze, to make sure users enjoy full experience in mobile browser

Then we invite our users to complete flow tasks

Through unmoderated testing, we collected quantitative insights to guide design improvements. This helped us refine initial concepts into a final solution that covered all edge cases.