How User Motivation Affects Onboarding Goals

In short

User motivation decides whether an onboarding goal is attainable. Following B. J. Fogg, users act when a trigger, the difficulty of the action and their motivation align, and low motivation supports only simple actions. The goal is achieved when initial motivation plus the motivation onboarding adds reaches the goal’s complexity, and onboarding can influence both sides.

Leo · CEO, Segmently Smart Flow

Published · 2 min read

Setting goals SMARTLY:

The onboarding goal is to increase user motivation to a level where "N%" of users engage with the feature, subscribe, etc.

To assess goal attainability, we turn to B. J. Fogg, the founder and director of the Stanford Behavior Design Lab, who suggests the following:

Users will perform the desired action when 3 components align:

  • Trigger - understanding what needs to be done
  • Difficulty - effort required to complete action
  • Motivation - willingness to exert effort
  • Low motivation leads to simple actions only

Attainability depends on:

  • Goal Complexity (GC) - amount of effort (time/motivation) users are willing to invest
  • Initial Motivation (IM) - user's motivation when they see onboarding
  • Additional Motivation (AM) - onboarding's potential to increase motivation

Key takeaways

  • The onboarding goal is to raise user motivation to the level where a set share of users engages with the feature, subscribes and so on.
  • Following B. J. Fogg, users perform the desired action when a trigger, the difficulty of the action and their motivation align.
  • Low motivation leads to simple actions only.
  • Attainability depends on goal complexity (GC), initial motivation (IM) and the additional motivation (AM) onboarding creates: the goal is achieved if IM + AM ≥ GC.
  • Through onboarding, you can influence both goal complexity and additional motivation.