Designing Onboarding as a Growth Lever
Reducing signup friction and improving value communication to increase activation
Redesigning the onboarding experience of a CMS used by accommodation providers in an online travel marketplace to reduce signup friction and increase activation.
Role: Product Manager / UX lead
Scope: Provider onboarding and supply activation
Accommodation providers needed to complete a long onboarding form before accessing the CMS platform.
The onboarding flow was disconnected from the main platform and required separate credentials, which created confusion.
Many providers started the process but did not complete it, creating a gap between signup and activation.
Redesign onboarding as a guided activation journey rather than a static form.
The goal was to reduce friction while communicating the value of joining the platform early in the experience.
- audited the onboarding process and identified key drop-off points
- prioritised two core metrics:
- increasing the number of providers starting onboarding
- increasing the completion rate
- redesigned the form using progressive disclosure
- introduced milestone-based steps to show progress
- reorganised fields so complex information appeared later in the process
- improved messaging to reinforce the value of joining the platform
By reducing cognitive load and making progress visible, the onboarding experience became easier to complete while still capturing the required information.
The project highlighted how onboarding is not simply a technical step but a critical growth lever in marketplace products.