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onboarding
The shortest path to the first success. Not a tour of every button.
What is onboarding?
Onboarding gets a new user to the first valuable action. It can be a checklist, a prefilled sample, or one question. A carousel that explains the logo is not onboarding. Progress should be skippable by people who already know.
Why does onboarding matter when vibe coding?
Models add a five-step modal that blocks the product. Name the one action that means they have arrived.
How do you do onboarding?
Define the first success. Remove every step that is not required for it. Let people skip. Empty states can teach without a wizard.
How do you ask a model for onboarding?
Onboarding reaches (first success) and then gets out of the way. No tour of features. Skip is allowed. Do not block the product with a carousel. Prefill an example if that teaches faster.
What goes wrong with onboarding?
A wizard that writes dummy data the user did not ask for and then cannot find. If you create a sample, label it as a sample and let them delete it.