A quick look at creating the onboarding flow for a goal-tracking exercise app.

Pace is a goal-tracking exercise app. The app lets users set goals, track progress, rate workouts, and more.

I was tasked with creating an onboarding flow which the user encounters after signup. Onboarding needed to accomplish the following:

Collect the user’s height and weight. This info is used to calibrate the calorie counter.
Help user set their first goal. Goals include activity (eg, running, walking, cycling), time parameters (daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly), and type parameters (distance, time length, or frequency).
Prompt user to give GPS permissions.

Role

I worked on this project alone, focusing on UX writing.

Duration

A few days.

Welcome screen

First, I tackled the welcome screen. I used this as an opportunity to establish a friendly, welcoming brand voice, and to include a small, delightful branding moment.

The welcome screen.

Height and Weight

Next, I wrote screens to collect height and weight data.

I made sure to approach this screen with empathy. Recording your weight can be negative for some people, so I made sure to explain why we needed this information. It can also be a pain in the butt—if the user hadn’t weighed themself in a while, they would need to interrupt the onboarding process to go find a scale to get on. So I made sure to let them know that their best guess was fine for this purpose by adding the following copy: "An estimate is fine. You can update this later."

A screen for logging height and weight, which reads "Log your height and weight. This info helps us calculate how many calories your burn during workouts."

Collecting height and weight info.

Setting Goals

I wanted goal setting to feel simple and intuitive. I decided to approach it “Mad libs” style. Users can select their preferred variables to complete the sentence.

The goal uses 10,000 steps daily as a placeholder. This is a common activity goal—particularly amongst people who are new to or restarting their fitness journey. Using a pre-filled goal on the screen decreases mental load, since some users may not have a specific goal in mind besides getting more active or losing weight.

An animated gif which illustrates setting a goal by filling in blanks in a sentence. Completed goal reads "I want to do yoga 3 times weekly."

Setting a goal, "Mad Libs" style.

Location Tracking Opt-In

For the location tracking opt-in, I made sure to explain why the app wants access to this info.

A screen depicting opting in to allow precise location tracking.

Success Screen

Finally, onboarding is complete. The final screen includes a small moment of celebration with the user for getting through it. I also made sure to remind them that they can always go in and change their details in the settings.

Complete Onboarding Flow

You can see a walkthrough of the entire onboarding flow in the gif below.

An animated gif illustrating a complete walkthrough of the onboarding, from logging height and weight to setting a goal to opting in to location tracking to the success screen.