Growth Insights Series: More Best Practices for New User Onboarding

Welcome back to the Growth Insights Series! In the last installment, we walked you through several best practices for elevating your app’s onboarding experience by building competency through tutorials.

Just to recap: Onboarding, sometimes referred to as the New User Experience (NUX) or First Time User Experience (FTUE) is how your app introduces new users to your experience. There are three essential pillars for creating a solid onboarding experience in your app:

In this article, we’ll explore the last two of three pillars for successful onboarding: Recall and Progression. As we mentioned last time, these pillars form the foundation of your app’s ability to successfully retain users. If you’re ready to start optimizing your onboarding experience and increasing retention, keep reading to dive into recall and progression best practices.

Recall refers to users’ ability to remember and execute what they’ve learned. It’s critical for user retention, yet it’s often overlooked in onboarding design. Without effective recall support, users returning after even a short break may feel like beginners again, which can lead to frustration and abandonment.

Effective onboarding ensures users can recall and navigate your experience without constant guidance. Here are some tips that can help your audience get comfortable with controls and remember them:

Keep in mind the "Three Times Rule": Most users need three successful repetitions of an action before it becomes internalized. This repetition transforms conscious effort into intuitive understanding and dramatically improves recall later. Here are some best practices to consider:

When users successfully perform a new skill, immediately reward them to reinforce what they’ve learned. This can apply to new tools or powers users just learned to use, unlocking the next step of their journey or even celebration with great VFX & SFX. Make sure rewards feel contextually appropriate within your experience. These immediate positive reinforcements help cement actions in users’ memory and build confidence for future challenges.

Users often need reminders of previously learned controls, especially in more complex apps or after breaks between play sessions. That’s why we recommend implementing non-intrusive onscreen prompts that don’t interfere with the user experience. Consider adding contextual hints that appear only after brief periods of inactivity at key interaction points. For apps where users might take extended breaks, these reminders become essential for maintaining enjoyment.

In the instance that users forget key controls, it’s important to provide a way to revisit instructions, such as an accessible codex or help menu. This becomes particularly valuable for users who take longer breaks between sessions and need to refresh their memory.

Regardless of your FTUE length, onboarding should include the types of interactions, environments and interfaces that users will regularly experience after the tutorial ends. This is successfully accomplished by introducing progression systems during onboarding, like player levels, RPG systems, battle passes or similar long-term engagement systems. This approach gives users a preview of the rest of your experience and a satisfying return on their initial time investment. The transition from learning to your core user experience is crucial for maintaining interest and encouraging users to return.

If you're building a game that offers character advancement or equipment progression, introduce these systems during onboarding. Even simple progression like acquiring different weapons should be previewed so users can understand and look forward to these systems.

Guiding your audience to experiment with different approaches during your tutorial can help them get accustomed to different scenarios they’ll encounter. This might mean giving them a new weapon or character option for a specific sequence or area. If these new options require significantly different controls, provide brief additional tutorials to ensure users remain comfortable.

Users need clear indicators of what their short and long-term goals are, as well as how to make progress towards these goals. A common approach involves introducing daily activities with generous rewards that reinforce key behaviors and guide users toward important features. Start with easily achievable tasks offering substantial rewards, then gradually increase complexity—this "stair-step" approach transitions beginners into engaged long-term users.

It’s important to ensure that users feel tangible growth during onboarding. Consider allowing users to level up once, craft stronger items or collect and spend currency before the tutorial ends. These visible indicators of advancement (numbers increasing, abilities expanding, items improving, etc.) satisfy feelings of achievement and encourage return visits. This growth should be a microcosm of larger progression systems that they will engage with over time.

If your app includes live service elements, introduce them at the end of onboarding to signal ongoing support. This may include guiding users to current seasonal content or your in-app store so they can get familiar with available content options. The goal is to raise awareness of these systems while allowing your audience to explore monetization at their own pace.

In this mini series, we've explored the three pillars of successful onboarding for immersive experiences:

These elements form the foundation of user retention and engagement in successful Meta Quest experiences. By investing in quality onboarding, you can set up your app for commercial success.

The Growth Insights Series will continue to expand in the coming months with deeper dives into user acquisition strategies, engagement tactics, and audience insights specific to the Meta Horizon ecosystem. Our goal is to provide you with actionable strategies to boost retention, drive engagement, and build sustainable revenue streams across various business models.

In our next article, we'll examine how these same principles apply specifically to Horizon Worlds creators, with tailored strategies for the unique social and discovery aspects of the Horizon ecosystem. Stay tuned by following us on X and Facebook—and subscribe to our monthly newsletter from your Developer Dashboard settings!