To & Fro • Onboarding Initiative

I. Project overview

Background

To & Fro is an innovative travel planning tool that streamlines the collaborative trip-building experience. It enables travelers to discover destination insights, share detailed itineraries, and organize group trips — all while preserving the authenticity of travel.

I joined as a UX/UI Designer to enhance the mobile experience, with a key focus on improving the onboarding flow.

My mission: build trust, simplify first steps, and accelerate time to value.

Role

UX/UI, Prototype, Component/ Spec handoff, IA, Flows, Usability

Team

Product Managers, Dev Team, UX Writing Team

Timeline

2024 - 2025

Improving the To & Fro onboarding experience

Problem

New users were either not completing onboarding or getting overwhelmed by To & Fro’s rich feature set. The complexity caused hesitation, frustration, and ultimately churn.

Goal

Come up with a way to simplify the onboarding experience, guide users to quick wins, and improve adoption and conversion rates.

Solution highlights

Streamlined and intuitive

Consolidated screens and reduced friction across the experience.

Provide "aha moments"

Helped users grasp key features early to boost satisfaction and confidence.

Gamify experience

Added a simple onboarding checklist with progress indicators to motivate completion.

Reduced Time to Value by 40% and increased onboarding conversion rate by 70%

II. Discover

Reviewing the old flow

Empathizing

User feedback made it clear: the onboarding flow felt unpredictable, overwhelming, and confusing. Users didn’t trust the experience and were unsure if they had completed the necessary steps to get started.

Here are a few quotes that stood out to me:

"I wasn’t sure if I finished setting up — it just sort of... ended."
- user

"I didn’t trust it with my trip planning after the weird sign-up."
- user

Hypothesizing and evaluation

I believed that unpredictable navigation, lack of system status, and overwhelming information architecture were key drivers of drop-off. Without quick value realization, users lost interest and churned.

I also did a quick UX evaluation of the old flow. Here are some of my notes.

Understanding the problem

Insights

I set out to deeply understand users' needs and frustrations.
‍
By analyzing insights from user interviews and affinity mapping key patterns, I identified the core problems and uncovered where improvements would have the greatest impact.

Inconsistent experience

The visual and interaction design between signup and the main feed felt disconnected, breaking trust.

No visibility of system status

Users didn’t know how far along they were during signup, causing uncertainty and hesitation.

Unsure where to start

Landing on the feed after signup felt like being dropped into a new city without a map.

Unawareness of product value

Without a clear explanation of core benefits, users couldn't see why To & Fro was worth their time.

III. Decide

From insights to user stories

A direction

After mapping user pain points, I distilled them into user stories that highlighted what users needed most.

Opportunities to focus on

These stories led directly to key features: a consistent onboarding experience, visible progress indicators, and faster value realization—all designed to reduce friction, build trust early, and accelerate adoption and satisfaction.

Narrowing solutions

Jobs-to-be-done microsurvey

Initially, I suggested adding a microsurvey to personalize onboarding based on user goals. It would have been powerful for tailoring experiences, but when checking in with engineers, they revealed it would ultimately be too complex for a quick fix.

❌ Did not pursue.

Onboarding checklist

I pitched a focused onboarding checklist: short, actionable, and motivational.

Instead of overwhelming users, this checklist would celebrate small wins and guide users to meaningful engagement faster.

✅ Identified a feasible solution.

IV. Design

Create a consistent first impression

Redesigned signup screens

I redesigned the signup flow to feel clean, modern, and trustworthy.

Build a sense of progress and momentum

Progress indicators

Progress indicators showed users exactly where they were in the process, reducing uncertainty and dropout.

Reveal product value faster

New onboarding checklist

After signup, users were greeted with a four-task onboarding checklist.
‍
Each task was designed to be completed in under five minutes, helping users feel progress immediately.
‍
Small cues embedded in the product nudged users toward high-value features naturally, supporting a smooth and engaging learning curve.

V. Validate

Initial impressions and results were mostly positive

Positive reception

Round-one testing showed users could locate key tools and, with guided onboarding, quickly grasp the app’s value for simplifying trip planning.

However...

... We ran into another issue

Itinerary creation wasn't obvious

Usability sessions still showed friction at the moment of truth: I made an account... now what?

People weren’t sure how days, lists, and places related, or how to tell if the plan was usable (distance, time).

"Uh... How does itinerary work?"
- user

So we addressed that problem

Itinerary tutorial

Because this was a new tool and early users weren’t sure how to start an itinerary, I added a dissmissible coach-mark sequence that appears the first time someone opens Itinerary with an empty plan.

Coach marks

Six quick tips demonstrate how to use the itineracy and its key capabilities.

Gamifying the experience

I introduced a progress meter and a ten-step checklist, pre-ticking the first task. That small head start (‘endowed progress’) builds momentum—users feel underway, complete the remaining steps, and learn the itinerary model as they go. The checklist turns onboarding into a guided tour, making discovery fun and boosting feature adoption.

Evaluate — how we measured impact (and how we’d scale it)

Primary KPIs

Onboarding completeion: signup start → checklist done (or first place added as the "value" proxy)

Time-to-value (TTV): median minutes from account created → (create trip OR first place added)

Qualitative validation: 5-7 follow-ups focused on "first itinerary" comprehension: can users explain the model and build a first day unaided?

Study design

Baseline vs post cohort comparison (same acquisition mix, 14-day windows)

Accomplishments

Initial testing projected the following metrics:

40% decrease

in time to value

70% increase

in onboarding completion rates

4/5 rating

by users for ease of use

Conclusion

Measuring success after 90 days

If the onboarding had shipped during my time, I would have measured success by:

• Comparing conversion rates between users who completed vs. skipped the checklist

• Tracking activation and adoption rates for key features

• Monitor churn over 30/60/90 days

• Collect qualitative feedback through in-app surveys and interviews

Over time, refining based on behavior patterns would be critical to long-term success.

What I learned

Takeaways

• Guide, don’t overwhelm: A small, meaningful checklist builds early momentum better than a flood of options.

• First impressions matter: Users judge credibility in seconds — a modern, seamless sign-up experience is essential.

• Speed to value wins loyalty: Helping users succeed quickly keeps them engaged longer.

•Flexibility respects users: Giving users control (e.g., skip options) builds trust.

Reducing time to value and improving conversion for an onboarding process

I. Project overview