Role
UX/UI Designer
Team
Design + Development Team
Duration
1 Month
Company
Confidential Client (NDA)
Problem
The onboarding experience suffered from inconsistent UI patterns, unclear hierarchy, weak validation logic, and poor error handling, creating confusion during the client onboarding process. Users struggled to understand required actions, leading to mistakes, friction, and an overall unreliable onboarding experience.
Before
The onboarding form had grown without a consistent UX structure, making the experience difficult to navigate and complete smoothly. Poor validation behavior, inconsistent layouts, and unclear error states increased cognitive load and caused users to feel uncertain throughout the onboarding process.
What I Did
Conducted user interviews and heuristic analysis to identify major usability gaps and friction points within the onboarding flow. Collaborated closely with developers to understand technical feasibility and improve the onboarding experience through clearer hierarchy, improved validation behavior, better field organization, and more consistent interaction patterns.
• Conducted user interviews to identify onboarding friction points
• Performed heuristic evaluation of the onboarding experience
• Improved form hierarchy and visual consistency across the flow
• Redesigned validation logic for clearer and more reliable feedback
• Structured fields into more understandable content groups
• Added inline guidance to reduce confusion during form completion
• Improved error prevention and error-state communication
• Collaborated with developers to align UX improvements with technical feasibility
• Refined interaction patterns for a smoother onboarding experience
• Tested and iterated solutions based on user and implementation feedback
After
The redesigned onboarding experience became clearer, more structured, and easier to complete. Improved validation behavior, stronger visual consistency, and better field organization reduced confusion and helped users move through the onboarding process with greater confidence and fewer mistakes.
Business Value
The improvements created a smoother and more reliable onboarding experience for clients while reducing usability friction and confusion. The updated flow improved clarity, consistency, and overall completion usability while also supporting a more scalable and developer-friendly implementation approach.
Mistake
I initially designed improvements assuming the development team would be able to implement all proposed changes within the project timeline.
I underestimated how much engineering bandwidth and technical prioritization would affect the final onboarding experience.
Some of the proposed UX improvements were too ambitious for the available development capacity at that stage.
I focused heavily on ideal onboarding improvements early on without fully aligning them with implementation constraints.
This project taught me that strong UX solutions also need to be scoped realistically around team capacity and delivery timelines.
Learning
I learned that onboarding clarity depends heavily on strong UI consistency, clear hierarchy, and predictable validation behavior.
This project taught me how small UX issues like unclear error states or inconsistent field patterns can create major friction during onboarding.
I understood the importance of designing onboarding flows that guide users confidently instead of making them guess what to do next.
I also learned that improving onboarding is not only about better visuals, but about reducing mistakes and improving completion confidence.
One of the biggest learnings was understanding how closely design decisions depend on development bandwidth and implementation feasibility.
Future State
The onboarding framework establishes a stronger usability foundation for future onboarding expansions and workflow improvements. The improved UX patterns and validation systems can support more scalable onboarding experiences while maintaining clarity and consistency across future product updates.
Detailed plan
Process
I created the script for the interview based on what I thought was going to be confusing during the interview. This being said, one should aim to understand, rather than simply assume, what the problem is.
During the research, I generated a list of issues that had the potential to negatively impact user experience. Based on these insights, I formulated a hypothesis to verify or reject during the usability testing sessions.
1. The user should be able to “Onboard 3rd party manually."
2. The user should be able to “View error state” if any while adding it.
3. The user should be able to view the "mandatory field” while adding a third party
3. Question: Did you notice the mandatory fields?
But it was a struggle
Feedback
1. Company, Individual... that row is confusing
2. Show compulsory field more clearly.
3. It should look modern and clean
4. It should have less numbers of fields
Below is a rainbow matrix showing the results tested against the hypothesis. Each circle symbolizes that the hypothesis was confirmed for each participant.
Implementation
Final implementation
Next Project
NAIE
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