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PROJECT

Onboarding for Merlyn


CLIENT

Merlyn Mind


YEAR

2025


TEAM

Product Design Lead: Mol Crickman
Senior Designer: Carly Luterbach

RESULTS

73% increase in onboarding completion rate
41% reduction in user drop-off during onboarding
56% increase in feature adoption post-onboarding
28% reduction in onboarding support tickets


THE SHORT

Navigating Complexity: A Tailored Approach to Merlyn’s Onboarding

When we initially launched Merlyn, we prioritized speed to market over a fully optimized onboarding experience. As a result, schools required extensive handholding to get up and running. We anticipated friction points and placed a fast-follow update on our roadmap to address district concerns.

Onboarding Merlyn was uniquely complex due to its B2B2C model and the vast differences in how school districts handle deployment. Large districts relied on automated software deployment, medium-sized districts had IT admins installing software manually, and in smaller districts, teachers often acted as their own admins. Adding to this complexity, Merlyn’s hybrid hardware + software nature meant that users could interact with different components first, leading to dozens of possible onboarding permutations.

The challenge was clear: How do we ensure the right user sees the right content at the right time?

Our solution was an onboarding experience launched directly from the Merlyn app—a single entry point that adapted dynamically to each user’s role and setup, ensuring a seamless start regardless of their deployment method.





THE LONG

Diving Deeper: The Strategy Behind Designing Merlyn’s Scalable Onboarding Experience

DISCOVERY + DEFINITION

The onboarding experience was identified as a key friction point in Merlyn’s user journey. Stakeholder feedback and user testing surfaced several core issues:

  • Users felt overwhelmed by too much information upfront.
  • Onboarding lacked personalization, treating all users the same regardless of experience level.
  • Key features were underutilized due to unclear guidance.


To address these concerns, we aligned with product and engineering teams to define clear goals for the redesign:

  • Reduce onboarding abandonment rates.
  • Increase engagement with key features post-onboarding.
  • Ensure the experience is scalable and adaptable to different user roles.


RESEARCH

Our research phase focused on understanding user behaviors a pain points through:

User Testing & Interviews
We conducted usability tests and interviews with 50 new users to understand their experiences. Key findings included:
  • 68% of users struggled with the initial setup steps
  • 52% didn’t fully understand key features after onboarding
  • 40% expressed frustration with redundant or irrelevant information

Journey Mapping & Story Mapping
We mapped the existing onboarding experience to identify high-friction areas. This exercise highlighted opportunities for improvement, such as:
  • Breaking down long onboarding steps into digestible sections.
  • Introducing progressive disclosure to guide users without overwhelming them.
  • Incorporating role-based onboarding paths for different user types




DECISIONS + NEXT STEPS

 Our research revealed several key areas for improvement in Merlyn’s onboarding experience. Users often felt overwhelmed by too much information upfront, leading to frustration and drop-offs. To address this, we introduced a step-by-step guided flow with clear progress indicators, breaking information into digestible sections. Additionally, the lack of role-specific onboarding made the experience feel irrelevant for different user types. We solved this by implementing a personalized onboarding path that adapted based on whether the user was an IT admin, teacher, or other stakeholder.

Another major challenge was low engagement with tutorials, which resulted in users underutilizing key features. To counter this, we integrated interactive walkthroughs that encouraged hands-on learning rather than passive instruction. Moreover, onboarding was previously too intertwined with the first-time user experience (FTUE), causing users to miss crucial information. We separated onboarding from FTUE to ensure that regardless of how a user first interacted with Merlyn—through hardware setup, software installation, or classroom use—they would always receive the right content at the right time.





Finally, a lack of clear feedback on progress left users uncertain about their onboarding status. To improve this, we added a visible progress tracker and success milestones, reinforcing a sense of accomplishment and guiding users to the next steps. These insights informed our UX flows and wireframing process, ensuring a structured, data-driven approach to the redesign.


IDEATION, PROTOTYPING + TESTING

 We iterated through multiple design solutions before finalizing the optimal approach. Key design decisions included:

  • Dynamic Onboarding Paths – Users selected their primary goals, customizing the experience to their needs
  • Online Assistance – Contextual tooltips and help prompts minimized confusion
  • Gamification Elements – Progress indicators and small wins increased motivation
After wireframing and prototyping, we conducted testing with 100 users, comparing the old and new onboarding flows, revealing significant improvements

  • Completion Rate: Increased from 42% to 73% (+31%)
  • Time to First Key Action: Reduced from 8 minutes to 5 minutes, (a 38% improvement in efficiency)
  • Feature Adoption Post-Onboarding: Grew from 32% to 56% (+24%), indicating stronger engagement with key features
  • Drop-off Before Completion: Decreased from 59% to 18%, (41% reduction in user abandonment)

The results confirmed that the new onboarding significantly improved user comprehension, reduced drop-off, and enhanced feature adoption.



LAUNCH + BEYOND

 The redesigned onboarding experience was successfully launched, delivering:
Higher user retention rates due to reduced onboarding friction.
Increased engagement with key features post-onboarding.
Scalable onboarding paths that adapt to different user needs.


Next Steps

Monitor user metrics to further refine the experience.
A/B testing to optimize onboarding effectiveness.
Expand role-based onboarding for more nuanced user journeys.

This iterative approach ensures that Merlyn’s onboarding will continue evolving to meet user needs, improving both user experience and business impact.


FINAL THOUGHTS

Redesigning Merlyn’s onboarding experience provided valuable insights into user behavior, engagement drivers, and UX best practices. This project reinforced the importance of:

  • Balancing guidance with efficiency – Too much information overwhelms users; too little leaves them lost.
  • Personalization – Users engage more when onboarding feels relevant to their needs.
  • Data-driven iteration – Continuous testing and refinement lead to measurable improvements.

By applying these principles, we successfully transformed Merlyn’s onboarding into a seamless, engaging, and effective introduction to the platform.

CERAMICS + ART