Imagine waking up and suddenly finding yourself in the cockpit at the controls of an airplane. Of course, you will not be able to operate the cockpit because it has many buttons, indicators, lights and you do not have any idea about them. Therefore, this explains the feelings for the user when they open an application for the first time. Releasing a new tool, an application or website leaves them feeling left apart or stranded.
Application designers often forget that a newcomer to their website might now know how everything works or where to find what they need, even if it is easy for the designer. Therefore, it is recommended to help users to save your users from the helpless feeling of confusion and frustration.
 User Onboarding
User Onboarding is a designed series of interactions that help the user ease into the product’s experience. These interactions can be made simple yet interesting or as complex guided tasks for users to complete. It is an indispensable element of mobile applications that builds the bridge between enticing individuals to give your application a shot and converting them into invested users. 
User Onboarding Flows: Types and Subtypes
There are two main types of user onboarding flows:
  1. Mobile user onboarding flows will introduce you to a game, a productivity application, a banking application and many more.
  2. Desktop user onboarding flowswill introduce you to a task-management tool, a conversion research SaaS, and many more.
There are four sub-types of user onboarding flows which depend on how much information your users are needed to get core values:
  1. Benefit-focused: Explains the 2-3 core benefits and how to achieve the benefit via the site or product or application.
  2. Function-focused: Explains the 2-3 core functions of site or product or application and how to use them.
  3. Doing-focused: It explains the user through the first or common actions.
  4. Account-focused: It walks the user through account or profile creation, including finding and adding friends or interests.
Sometimes for complex sites or products or applications, it is necessary to combine above four. Every platform has a different approach for onboarding new customers on online platforms. Let us see few examples of how successful players are creating perfect onboarding customer’s experience.  
 Instagram
Instagram is the most used photo-sharing application that is used worldwide. The platform has been developed enormously from the invent of video-tagging to adding a mute button videos to sharing stories. Being a favourite of today’s digital world, it is essential to study the onboarding pattern of Instagram. Let’s go through the registration process.
Registration Flow:
  1. The registration process starts on the homepage.
  2. Log in or Sign up– Here you can log in or create an Instagram using Facebook account, your email address or our phone number. Most people choose Facebook as the preferred option for Instagram.
  3. Phone/Email– We use the phone or email option generally to sign up with. There are two tabs from which we can choose as to which method to use: Phone and Email.
  4. Adding More Details– Here we are asked to create an Instagram user name, provide our full name, add a profile photo and create a log in password. We also have the option of changing the username in the future.
  5. Connect to Facebook– In this step, we are asked to connect Facebook to find friends on facebook on Instagram and connect to them. This step can be skipped using a small “skip button” at the bottom.
  6. Find Contacts– In this step, we are prompted to search contacts for friends who are o Instagram. This step can be skipped using a small “skip button” at the bottom.
  7. Discover People– In this step, Instagram presents the user a list of people based on his contacts on facebook and phone with an option to hide or follow.
Now you are onboard to the main page with the in-app guide model which lets you guide through the functions and then tapping on the camera icon through which you can share your first photo or video.

 
Instagram for Business Onboarding 
Businesses need to be where every customer is, and with over 80 million people on Instagram, most of them are on the picture-sharing app. As it has become difficult to convince the customer, there is indeed a need to show proof.
To help businesses reach, inspire and discovered by customers on the network, Instagram launched “Business Profiles” in 2016. These dedicated profiles let companies add extra information such as operating hours, location and phone numbers as well as they also offer access to real-time social media metrics. Let’s go through the registration process.
  1. Sign Up– Download the Instagram App and then sign up by entering an email address. You can also log in with a Facebook account.
  2. Set Up Your Business Profile –Within the application, find settings, then scroll down to Switch to Business account. When you have a business account, you can add business information such as operating hours, business description, business address, contact details and much more.
  3. Start Posting and Following-Start posting content related to your business with hashtags and start following similar accounts.
With Instagram business account you can also get real-time metrics on your stories promoted posts perform throughout the day. Get insights into your followers and how they interact with your posts and stories. 
Conclusion
The Onboarding process on Instagram for normal users or business users is easy and fascinating. The process looks pretty standard starting, a user is immediately funneled into the profile creation process. The next step is related to connect with the people to further engage users. The next step is related to adding a profile photo and details about the users which is quite and adaptable. The last step in which an in-app guide guides users through the tabs and buttons. With free Instagram business account services, users can also get real-time page updates and can attract business because youth are keeping Instagram as a priority social media platform.