The onboarding wizard design skill.

What this skill is for

Growth tooling, grouped by funnel stage.

12 skills across the Growth Tooling track. Onboarding-wizard-design opens the Activate stage: post-signup tools that get users to value. Together with interactive-product-tour and chatbot-flow-design, the trio covers the activation surface.

Anatomy of an earned-progressive-disclosure wizard

Step 3 of 5 with honest progress and drop-off heatmap.

A coherent step (data connection); honest progress indicator (60%); skip available but friction-balanced. Drop-off heatmap surfaces step 3 as the high-friction step warranting remediation.

What is in the skill

Thirteen sections covered in the body.

1. 01

   What this skill covers

   First-run product onboarding wizards. Distinct from multi-step-form-design (pre-signup) and interactive-product-tour (contextual).

2. 02

   The wizard decision

   When wizards earn the build vs when contextual help suffices.

3. 03

   Tutorial-overload vs skip-friendly-empty vs earned-progressive-disclosure

   The keystone framing. The litmus test for wizard quality.

4. 04

   Step architecture

   Identity, context, critical setup, first-action, configuration deferral, confirmation. Convergence on ah-ha moment.

5. 05

   The ah-ha moment design

   Action-tied, single-shot, visible, honest. Designing the wizard to converge.

6. 06

   Progressive disclosure patterns

   Default-heavy, required-now-optional-later, expand-on-demand, branching.

7. 07

   Skip and resume mechanics

   Skip honest about consequences; resume mechanisms work.

8. 08

   Drop-off measurement and remediation

   Per-step instrumentation. Common drop-off patterns.

9. 09

   Wizard variations by user type

   Admin vs end-user, technical vs non-technical, size-based branching.

10. 10

    Common failure modes

    9+ patterns: high completion + low activation, skip rate too high, returning users hit broken steps.

11. 11

    The framework: 12 considerations

    Decision, earned-progressive-disclosure, step architecture, ah-ha moment, progressive disclosure, skip honest, resume works, instrumentation, variation, mobile, activation metric, maintenance.

12. 12

    Reference files

    Nine references covering decision criteria, step architecture, ah-ha moment engineering, progressive disclosure, skip-and-resume, drop-off measurement, user-type variation, anti-patterns, failures.

13. 13

    Closing: wizards earn the user's first session

    The wizards that compound activation are the ones that engineer the ah-ha moment without overwhelming.

Pairs with these platforms

Three platforms with onboarding-relevant workflows.

The skill is platform-agnostic. These platforms ship workflows that fit onboarding wizard programs: PostHog (per-step instrumentation), Notion (wizard spec and step-architecture documentation), AirOps (workflow automation for sequence and prep).

• Product-led growth teams

  PostHog

  Open-source product analytics with experiments

  Open the page

• Notion-centric teams

  Notion

  Briefs as a queryable database

  Open the page

• Content teams that prefer managed workflow builders to build-it-yourself pipelines

  AirOps

  AirOps's official MCP and Claude Connector for AEO data and Brand Kits

  Open the page

Growth Tooling Tier 2 opens

First skill in the activation cluster.

Frequently asked questions.

How is onboarding-wizard-design different from multi-step-form-design?

Multi-step-form-design is pre-signup data capture: forms before the user has access to anything. Onboarding-wizard-design is post-signup product onboarding: the wizard the user sees inside the product after signup. Different phase, different audience state, different design considerations.

What is the ah-ha moment?

The single visible moment when the user feels 'oh, this is what the product does for me.' Action-tied (the user did something), single-shot (one specific moment), visible (the user saw the result), honest (real value, not contrived). The wizard's job is to engineer this moment within the user's first session.

What is wrong with tutorial-overload?

Every feature explained in a 12-step intro before the user has touched the product. Cognitive overload. Users skip if they can; abandon if they cannot. The wizard's design effort produces a sequence almost nobody completes; activation rate suffers because users did not reach the value-giving moment.

What is skip-friendly-empty?

'Skip onboarding' button so prominent that users always take it. They land in unconfigured product; have no context; churn within hours. Activation rate falls off a cliff because users never set up the basics that make the product functional.

When should we use a wizard vs contextual help?

Wizards work when the product has meaningful setup before value emerges, when the ah-ha moment requires multiple actions in sequence, and when the audience expects guided onboarding. Contextual help (tooltips, in-feature hints) often serves better when the product reaches value immediately or when the audience prefers self-directed discovery.

What is the activation success metric?

Activation = post-wizard product engagement, not just wizard completion. Define activation explicitly (e.g., user returned within 7 days and engaged with feature X). Wizard completion is leading indicator at best; activation is the metric that matters. Programs that track only completion keep shipping wizards that look successful but produce no engagement.