UX Design: A Neuromarketing Study of Duolingo’s Onboarding Flow
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Duolingo is wildly popular worldwide, but did you know it is also known among UX professionals as a best practice for user onboarding? The Web is full of blogs about Duololingo's intuitive UI/UX, which is said to be laced with gamification, personalization and psychology. However, none of those articles are based on neuromarketing research, the only option for measuring data on intuition, engagement and emotional impact. Time to conduct a neuro-usability study on Duolingo in our neuro-lab.
App onboarding
Before we get into neuro-usability, we first need to ask ourself: what is a "good onboarding" flow? The term onboarding comes from the HR industry and is about introducing new employees. The introduction of digital products has many similarities, although it doesn't have the same impact or commitment as a new job. The key difference is the question: "what's in it for me?", which is central to app onboarding.
Software programs and apps often ignore this concept and put too much focus on providing extensive information, for instance with extensive product tours, creating a mismatch in what user’s experience as relevant.
Value proposition
The essence of onboarding is to convert a value proposition into a tangible customer experience as quickly and effectively as possible.
Onboarding is not about showing what an app can do, but what it means to the user. Why is the app relevant? What problem does it solve for the user?
Getting that value understood as quickly as possible just turns out to be harder than thought. A sampling of onboarding data: in the initial onboarding (sign-up) phase, there is the drop-off (also called abandonment rate) 40-60% due to poor onboarding*. For apps in financial services, where security and regulations affect the customer journey, this is even more dramatic: over 70%.
This drop-off behavior can be halved when onboarding is fast and efficient*, but even then more than 70% of remaining users report that they were not engaged.
Why is that? And more importantly, how do you prevent it?
Onboarding best practices
At the bottom of this article are some links to cases and blogs about factors and elements that work well -or don't work- in onboarding flows. We recognize many of these from our own usability studies, like the one we did for TomTom Go.
Aspects that are important in good onboarding flows:
1. Focus on value transfer. show what solution is provided to the user (show, don't tell!)
2. Show only the most important features. Limit yourself to the core and let users experience the app as soon as possible. At a later time, when users are egenaged, you can give more information or in-app onboarding.
3. Short & clear. The faster is better. For longer flows focus on positive engagement. Use progressive disclosure to show where users are in the process.
4. Registration: at the start or at the end? As late as possible and aim for the minimum. Ask for more information later, when users are engaged (reciprocity principle).
5. Data / tracking approval is almost never explained. Why to opt in for tracking or push messages? Look at it from the customer's point of view and entice them not to click 'no' by default.
7. CTA: build a bridge to (direct) app usage. Trigger users at the end of the onboarding with a logical next step to use the app right away.
Duolingo: best practice or not?
Let's now dive into the Duolingo case and analyze its flow by measuring (subconscious) user behavior. For this exercise we compared two variants: a previous and the current version of the Duolingo app, so that we can also look at how Duolingo optimizes their journey.
We had new users install and walk through the Duolingo app in our neuroscience lab, mapping emotions and (unconscious) behavior with EEG (brain activity), eye-tracking (viewing behavior), mouse-tracking (click/browse behavior) and session recordings. Afterwards, there was an interview with a psychologist (see an explanation of this methodology here).
How good is Duolingo's onboarding?
Duolingo's onboarding flow
Interestingly, Duolingo's onboarding flow is much (much) longer than most other apps. The overview below shows that it involves dozens of pages:
As you can see, the best practice of 'short and sweet' does not apply at all. However, this does not seem to be a problem with Duolingo users. In our neuro-data we did not see any negative emotions, not even subconsciously. The main reason for this is that from the very first moment in the flow, onboarding is hardly about the app, but instead has its focus on the user, who immediately starts using it. Our research showed that Duolingo has the value transfer and positive engagement excellently in place.
Emotional engagement
By asking at the start what language one wants to learn, for what purpose and what level someone has, users become engaged. In the neuro-data, we see that a sense of interaction is evoked, rather than "installation. It is clear how many steps the user has to go through ("Just 7 more questions before we start with your first") and through the design and flow are well put together.
Baby Schema Effect
The design is engaging and provides a fun- and likability factor. Duo, the owl's name, is overtly designed for us from a psychological "baby schema effect": the big eyes and characteristics of a baby (such as a chubby body) instinctively trigger positive emotions. Meanwhile, it distracts from setup time, in part because Duo keeps you busy waving, dancing and appearing at unexpected times. This is brilliant design and UX, which is confirmed in our neuro-data.
Reciprocity and engagement
Another well-designed element is that Duolingo first makes users feel like they are getting something. Subconsciously, this increases users' motivation to give something back, in this case completing the onboaring. This is reciprocity, which you often encounter in UX as a strength or weakness.
Addressing the user's needs directly at the start of onboarding automatically creates positive engagement. This starts with the request to choose a language. The EEG shows positive emotions and in neurofeedback, users indicate that they get excited about learning a new language. In fact, the onboarding starts from a desire.
One point of improvement (confusion) is that it is unclear that users choose "spoken language" first and then the language to be learned. The list of languages to learn is overwhelming, with too many options without a filter or search function. Eye-tracking data shows that it is difficult to interact. Fortunately, Duolingo has picked up on this as well, and in the new(er) version of the app, we see that the copy and design have been optimized.
Before resuming the intuitive flow, one other hiccup follows with a question about how the user had heard of Duolingo. We see that this evokes negative emotions and this is perceived as unexpected and irrelevant. We would therefore deploy this question at a different (later) time.
This bump is followed by questions about the level of experience of the language to be learned. The feeling of acquiring something new (gaining knowledge) creates positive emotions, a stimulus we see more often at the beginning of a learning process. Users with no experience felt discomfort in the previous app version due to the absence of a "no experience" option, which had the opposite effect (less engaged), but Duolingo has also optimized this in the current version.
After setting learning goals, Duo indicates that it likes to coach and whether it can send notifications. A tick in the box for item 5 from the best practice list!
In the previous version of the app, this was followed by a "course overview page" with various language stats. Due to the lack of context, this was not perceived as relevant, and this too Duolingo has changed in the new version. It shows well how a non-core feature can be removed from a flow without disrupting the onboarding process.
Gamification
The earlier mentioned questions are followed by various gamification and rewards elements. Copywriting is simple and playful, but seen through our lens, it is full of psychological elements to emotionally engage users.
For example, Duo asks if you want to start from a basic level or if the app tests your language level. Most users choose that, and by doing so, they actually start with a training course. Playfully and without typing, they follow a question-answer game, each time passing a new 'level'. Meanwhile, you earn 'experience points'(XP), encouraged by Duo for positive engagement.
Another reward element is working with 'streaks,' so there's a trigger to use the app again every day (but hey, you do that for your own language skills 😉). After full onboarding, other variations are added, such as quests, medals (badges) and leaderboards (leagues, rankings). As a result, the app is fully dedicated to playful learning -and user coordinated return.
So Duolingo has deployed the CTA to get the app experienced as quickly as possible with testing your basic level directly tied to the user's need. This is in line with point 6 from the best-practices for successful onboarding.
Duo also uses this when users choose to start without experience. In that case, they also start with a language test, which creates a surprise. This mismatch in expectations is because previous screens are about motivation and not about starting a test. Still, the neuro and participant data show that this does not cause irritation, despite being unintuitive from a UX perspective (and easy to improve with copywriting).
By the end of the flow, users have learned about the app through play. At that point, Duo asks for your sign-up. It's even possible to skip this and do it later, but since users have experienced the value of the app (and don't want to lose data and progression) it's perfect timing to engage users. This is an excellent example of reciprocity: the app has invested in you, and you are undoubtedly giving something in return.
Conclusion: is the Duolingo onboarding a best practice?
The flow is not perfect, but professionals can indeed learn from Duolingo on how great onboarding works!
It is interesting to see how key onboarding drivers have been deployed and aforementioned best practices are almost entirely reflected in this onboarding.
Duolingo's strength is that they quickly introduce users to using the app and you as a user know the value and "gameplay" before you've actually started. Furthermore, the flow has a succession of natural, intuitive CTAs.
Psychology plays an important role, and we see from the process, the copywriting and the designs that a lot of research has been done into (unconscious) behavior and these insights are used to optimize the flow. That conclusion was confirmed by the bottlenecks we extracted from the flow and then saw that they were largely optimized in the current version.
Except for a few areas of improvement, we conclude from our neuro-usability research that Duolingo can rightfully be called a best practice when it comes to onboarding and engaging (new) users.
*Source: GITNUXMarket Data Report 2023
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