Desidera — AI-Powered SaaS Tool
This case study explores the development of a user onboarding and personalization strategy for Desidera, a specialized SaaS application in radar data analysis. Desidera provides tailored solutions such as certifications for deforestation-free land and harvest yield insurance.
My journey with Desidera involved a comprehensive visual revamp and strategic UX upgrades to accommodate new functionalities.
SUMMARY
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Creative Direction
During my collaboration with Desidera, I took the lead during the product's growth phase, tackling a range of user experience challenges. I shaped creative strategies, streamlined team processes, and contributed to expanding our product's impact.
As the UX Designer, I was responsible for conducting user research, designing the onboarding flow, and implementing personalization features.
Collaboration was key, and I worked closely with front-end teams to ensure quality and engagement. Tools and processes were introduced to foster a culture of great design. Taking charge of strategy and aesthetics, I blended business goals, market research, and stakeholder collaboration.
My focus was on key initiatives and features that set the stage for Desidera's future successes.
🎯 The challenge
Users were experiencing difficulties during the onboarding process, leading to high drop-off rates. Additionally, the lack of personalized experiences was affecting user engagement.
🏆 The solution
The main goals were to streamline the onboarding process and enhance user engagement through personalized experiences.
✅ Results
Even though Desidera is mostly chosen due to word-of-mouth popularity, improving user onboarding definitely enhanced our success, as measured by user engagement metrics and retention rates.
Impact
Achieved a 12% increase in user retention and a 15% improvement in user satisfaction scores.
👀 How we did it
Research
We conducted user interviews and surveys to understand the pain points users faced during onboarding and what kind of personalization they valued.
Findings
Users wanted a simpler onboarding process with clear guidance and personalized content that matched their specific needs.
Know your customers inside and out
We have successfully interviewed the customers who use Desidera the most and are already gaining value from it.
Our interviews with customers revealed valuable insights, helping us make our product more accessible. Our customers are the stars of Desidera's evolution—we learn a lot from them.
So, let's dive in and meet Farmer Somchai from Vietnam.
Somchai Sukasem
Age: 47
Education: High school diploma
Location: Hoàng Su Phì,
Ha Giang, Vietnam
Occupation: Rice farmer
Experience: 25 years in farming, specializing in rice cultivation
Farm Size: 150 hectares
"I need tools that help me make better decisions without being too complicated."
"Real-time information about my crops and soil can save me a lot of trouble and money."
Goals
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Optimize irrigation and fertilization to increase rice yield
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Monitor soil health to maintain long-term soil fertility
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Implement sustainable farming practices to qualify for eco-certifications
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Obtain accurate certifications for sustainable and deforestation-free land
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Secure harvest insurance based on accurate data
Frustrations
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Limited access to advanced farming technologies
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Difficulty in interpreting complex data and reports
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Unpredictable weather impacting crop yield
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Lack of real-time alerts for potential issues like pests or diseases
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High cost of traditional soil and crop monitoring tools
Tech Skills
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Basic knowledge of smartphones and agricultural apps
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Familiar with GPS-based tools for farming
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Limited experience with data analysis software
Behavior
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Prefers tools with straightforward interfaces and clear instructions
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Values cost-effective solutions with tangible benefits
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Relies on community recommendations and word-of-mouth for new tools
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Often consults local agricultural extension services for advice
🧠 Psych level vs. Customer Journey
I mapped out the user journeys, identifying critical touchpoints for onboarding and opportunities for personalization.
I analyzed the journey to pinpoint pain points from Somchai's perspective. Later, we'll discuss solutions, but first, let's delve into Desidera's existing onboarding and ideate solutions for areas to improve.
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I'm a big fan of user onboarding UX and analyze every onboarding experience I come across—it's like a party that never stops! 😃😀 You know what I mean—users don’t care about your features as much as you do. They care about how your product is going to make their lives better.
Build with goals in mind
With this in mind, we reframed Desidera's onboarding to focus on core features one at a time—guiding users to their 'aha moments'. 🎉
Bottom line: We keep it streamlined, focusing on the key actions new users need to succeed with our product. We also offer 'deferred account creation', allowing users to experience Desidera's value before signing up, so they can see the benefits without the commitment.
Specific Uses
By leveraging data for segmentation and targeting, we personalize the UX to deliver relevant onboarding experiences, speeding up users' time to value.
We compiled the most relevant use cases for Somchai, aiming to provide a comprehensive solution tailored to his specific needs. Our focus was on identifying Somchai's 'aha moment,' where he realizes the value of our product in solving his farming challenges.
Clear the path to the 'Aha!' moments
Let's explore how we improved Desidera's user onboarding. Our approach centers on user actions, analyzing them to suggest personalized next steps. Then, I'll detail how Desidera uses UX and personalization to drive user engagement.
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UI patterns to guide users to their end goal
Crafting an engaging product tour is like hosting a lively party. At Desidera, we guide users through onboarding by sparking interest and making them feel at home, mixing and matching UI patterns.
We identify tricky spots for new users and simplify them with quick modals explaining features, tooltips for button functions, and hotspots guiding users effortlessly.
Welcome messages
We use modals to welcome new users and introduce key features, guiding them through the onboarding process.
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Product tour
Desidera prioritizes a learning-by-doing approach, allowing potential customers to interact with our product and understand its benefits before requiring any commitment, such as subscribing to our service.
Below, I demonstrated how Desidera's onboarding process works—allowing users to interact with the platform. If customers want, we can schedule an online meeting to understand their needs better and offer a free trial account to let them explore Desidera's core features.
Tooltips
We design product tours for Desidera that can be minimized and accessed when the user is ready. This setup ensures help is available when users need it, on their terms. We focus on matching the UI pattern with the needs of your users and the requirements of the app. By doing so, we ensure that users feel at home and comfortable navigating the platform.
We used tooltips for self-service walkthroughs, contextual product tutorials, and new feature announcements.
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Our research helped build a bridge between our users and our platform, ensuring a seamless user journey. With a 'mind the gap' focus, we guide our users interactively every step of the way.
Below, I demonstrate the 'Certification' request steps. As you can see, we supported our users during onboarding by aligning UI patterns with user motivations—creating effective product tours that they love.
In addition to tooltips, we also use emails and push notifications to give users a nudge. Our goal is to keep users coming back, engaging with the app, and forming a habit of using it. We support our users by providing incentives for daily use of using the Desidera app daily, such as vouchers for regular use.
Checklists and Progress bars
In user onboarding, leveraging the 'Zeigarnik effect'—which highlights our tendency to remember unfinished tasks—we focus on clarity and progress tracking to keep users motivated.
By using checklists and progress bars, we guide users through the journey, ensuring they understand expectations and remain engaged until completion. This approach not only enhances user retention but also drives adoption of key features within our platform.
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Personalize with segmentation
Desidera allows users to save their land for future investments—whether to document or store data for later action. Users can track pending transactions and use the interactive map to view their land—the map provides a fun and engaging experience, making the platform enjoyable to use.
🛠️ Design tools
I iterated the Design System, documentation, and UI Kits, ensuring we maintained consistent style and execution at scale. Collaborating with front-end teams, I implemented these elements in production, enabling fast and high-quality work.
I focused on UX and micro-interactions, keeping things simple yet impactful. The goal was to streamline Desidera visually and experientially, overcoming challenges to maintain simplicity despite dense information.
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🔥 In a Nutshell
Reflection
Learnings
I learned a lot about user onboarding and its importance, especially in a SaaS environment. The more I delved into user onboarding, the more I realized the importance of guiding users in a way that not only improves their experience but also brings them joy and puts a smile on their faces.
Future Improvements
In the future, we aim to improve user onboarding by enhancing personalization through incorporating more user data and expanding AI capabilities across various mediums.
Conclusion
Summary
This project successfully streamlined the onboarding process and enhanced user engagement through personalized experiences.
Final Thoughts
This case study highlights the critical role of user-centered design in creating effective SaaS B2B products.