Avoid These Four Gross User Onboarding Mistakes That Microsoft Teams Is Doing
Microsoft Teams might be a popular product but it’s not thanks to it’s UX. I tore down their entire onboarding step by step. These are the top four mistakes you should avoid in your own product to increase conversions.
Don’t Break The User’s Flow
During the signup flow, Microsoft pulled my name automatically from Google (I used Google signup to register). But the phone number field was empty:
When I tried adding it, a new window opened with a completely new design. And it didn’t even contain a place where to change the phone number:
It’s probably one of the worst examples of breaking user flow I’ve seen — directing users away from the page.
Microsoft, at minimum, could have at least directed me to the right setting. But ideally, this change should have been made right on the signup form. Inline. Without ever leaving the signup page.
Users hate filling up the signup fields already. Making them get lost in a maze on another page in another window makes it way worse.
I ran into the exact same problem when trying to use Chat.
It should have been possible to send user invitations inline.
Make Errors Prominent
It’s already bad enough when something goes wrong. It’s even worse when you don’t see what went wrong.
Even a simple color change would have made the error message much better to notice.
There’s also a big difference between someone like me (who is specifically searching for errors) and a 60-year-old who is not that perceptive to details. Design with the lowest common denominator in mind.
Don’t Keep Empty States Empty
Note that in the example above Microsoft already knew I didn’t have any users invited. And they knew it wasn’t possible to invite users directly from the chat page.
The empty state could have addressed both problems at least with a user invitation button. But it didn’t:
Not only didn’t the empty state look nothing like it would look when filled with actual data but it didn’t even provide any useful info or shortcuts. In fact, it just duplicated info:
Sometimes we forget about empty states because we only see them once after signup. But empty states are a great way to educate users and provide shortcuts to setup actions. Use them.
Give Feedback When Something Is Done In The Background
Let’s see what happens after creating a new meeting.
The message that appeared (“Meeting created”) didn’t say anything about whether a meeting invite was actually sent out or not. And there’s no way for me to double-check that because I obviously couldn’t access invited users’ inboxes.
When doing something in the background, provide the user always with feedback.
Bonus Tips
Check out the full teardown for more of what Microsoft Teams does right and where it errs against best practice.
User activation is the only flow that 100% of your signups experience. It’s worth paying extra attention to it.
