First impressions

First impressions are the experiences that people using our products encounter when they do or see something for the first time.

Great first impressions can influence a person's decision to engage with, keep using, and recommend our products. These experiences should be contextual, focus on one to three key benefits, and make people feel supported, motivated, confident, and empowered.

Three first impression scenarios that cover the most common user journeys:

  • new product signup

  • new experience

  • new, updated, or removed features

All teams can use the first impression guidelines to drive people towards their "aha!" moment - when they know how something delivers value to them.

First impressions are...

Driven by user benefits

Know your target audience and demonstrate the value proposition to them when they need it. Understand the user's goals, what they want to accomplish, and how the feature or change will benefit them.

Thoughtful

Think about what people were doing before encountering your first impression pattern and what they'll be doing next. First impression patterns should be dismissible, so we get out of people's way.

Continuously considered

Onboarding and change management should be built into the design and development cycles. It should not be an afterthought.

Holistic

Consider the whole user journey when creating a first impression. Define the priority and quantity of all push notifications the user will encounter based on their needs.

Ready to make a good first impression?

Choose a first impression pattern to get started.

New experiences

Use this pattern to introduce an entire set of feature changes, which can include new functionality, look, or interaction points. This includes medium or large experiences that a majority of people will encounter. For information on how we size first impressions, go to user journey sizes.

Go to the new experience pattern.

New or updated features

Use this pattern to introduce existing users to a new or updated feature. This includes changes that impact only some users, so would be small or medium user journey sizes.

Go to the new or updated feature pattern.


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