Create User Onboarding Guides That Drive Activation

This skill creates user onboarding guides that convert new users into engaged customers. It applies the 3-30-3 rule (3 seconds to grasp value, 30 seconds to see a path to the first goal, 3 minutes to feel meaningful progress) and a progressive disclosure framework moving from essential first actions through quick wins, advanced features, and mastery content. It targets success metrics (time to first value, activation rate, feature adoption depth, retention at day 1/7/30). It structures a welcome section with a specific-outcome promise, a step-by-step format (goal, actions, why-it-matters, success indicator, next-step preview), voice and tone guidelines (confident and specific rather than vague or condescending), cognitive-load-reducing content (short, scannable steps versus a dense feature list), progress indicators and onboarding checklists, conditional role-based content branches, an empty-state strategy turning blank screens into onboarding prompts, contextual help tooltips, milestone/gamification messaging, proactive troubleshooting FAQs, a save-and-resume exit-ramp pattern, and a measurement/A-B-testing framework tracking step completion, drop-off, and support ticket volume by stage.

Use this skill when writing a user onboarding flow or guide - structuring a welcome message around a specific outcome, writing step-by-step onboarding content with clear success indicators, reducing cognitive load in setup instructions, building a progress checklist, branching content by user role, turning an empty dashboard state into an onboarding prompt, writing proactive troubleshooting content, or designing a save-and-resume pattern for interrupted onboarding.

It does not cover the underlying product feature design - it is focused specifically on the onboarding content, sequencing, and messaging that guides a new user to their first success.

Inputs are typically the product's core first-use goal and the steps required to reach it. Outputs include structured onboarding content, for example a step template:

### Step 1: Create Your Profile (2 minutes)

**Goal**: Help teammates recognize and contact you

1. Add your photo -> Click profile circle -> Upload image
2. Enter your role -> "Software Engineer", "Product Manager", etc.

**Success**: Your profile shows a "Complete" badge

Other outputs include a welcome section framing a specific 3-step outcome, an onboarding checklist with completion count and estimated time remaining, role-based conditional content blocks, an empty-state prompt converting a blank dashboard into a call to action, proactive troubleshooting FAQ entries, a save-and-resume message for interrupted setup, and a list of tracking points (completion rates, drop-off locations, support tickets by stage) for A/B testing onboarding copy and sequencing.

Product and growth teams designing user onboarding who need psychology-backed structure and measurable success metrics rather than a generic welcome tour.