Best Practices for EdTech Companies to Onboard Their Users

Good Onboarding Flows of Big Ed-Tech Companies

Before jumping to the statistics and numbers, we want to go over the onboarding flows of big EdTech companies in order to get acquainted with certain patterns and use cases when it comes to onboarding in the EdTech industry.

This way, it’ll be easier to evaluate different strategies and features and how they can be used in real life, now that we’ve seen what’s popular, what’s the norm, and what is lacking.

So, let’s get on with it!

360Learning’s Onboarding 

360Learning is a collaborative learning platform, and here’s how it onboards news users 👇🏻

After signing up, 360Learning welcomes users with a quick onboarding survey to understand their needs and use cases. Rather than using traditional onboarding elements, 360Learning integrates onboarding instructions directly into the process of reaching the first 'Aha!' moment: creating a course.

As you can see here, contextual tips and instructions show up right in the content tab, where users write their course content. This helps take away the frustration of staring at a blank slate.

That said, 360Learning doesn’t just rely on embedded instructions. 

They also use traditional tooltips here and there. While embedded info helps fill the empty space and gives you more room for explanations, too much of it can make things feel cluttered and distracting.

Here’s an example tooltip from 360Learning’s onboarding:

A tooltip like this can bundle several small tips and instructions together, saving users from having to read them separately across different parts of the UI. Plus, it adds a nice pop of color and helps draw their attention.

Another product adoption strategy 360Learning uses is gamification. 

When a user creates or completes a course (or achieves something else on the platform), 360Learning celebrates with a modal like this:

It also awards badges, motivating users to keep going and earn even more as they progress in their learning journey.

Here are some of them:

You can also track your progress on the badges and see how many more tasks you need to complete to earn the next badge, which is a nice touch!

Synthesia’s Onboarding

Synthesia is an AI video generation and communication platform, and here’s how it onboards news users 👇🏻

The onboarding process starts with a 7-question onboarding survey. Though the number of questions might seem too many, they are all multiple-choice and very easy to answer, covering things like your website, use case, company size, etc.

Each question appears in a different modal, so you see only one question at a time. There’s also a progress bar, though there’s no statement indicating how many questions are in the survey, so you have to estimate.

After the initial survey, Synthesia jumps right into creating your first video, asking about your topic and prompting you to provide more details about the scope and audience of the video.

You can either fill in the questions or, if you already have an outline, upload it instead.

Once you click on 'Create video,' Synthesia generates the video and takes you to the video editor.

A quick 4-step product tour welcomes you to the editor’s UI, introducing key sections and buttons like the voice library, text editing, and avatars.

The tooltips have short, clear copy along with visuals to make the experience more engaging and interesting. And this time, there’s a numbered progress indicator, so this time we actually know how many steps await us!

Synthesia also utilizes overlay modals to encourage users to upgrade their plan.

The copy consists of a precise value proposition, along with three chunks of information about what the upgrade includes. There are also visuals on the right side of the modal that illustrate the written advantages and premium features/capabilities, which makes it easier for the user to understand and digest.

Safety Culture’s Onboarding

Safety Culture is a workplace operations platform that helps you improve your safety, quality, and efficiency operations through audits, inspections, and reporting. 

Here’s how it onboards new users 👇🏻

Like other EdTech companies we’ve examined so far, SafetyCulture begins onboarding with a short welcome survey. It asks about company size, industry, and use case. Then, it guides the user directly to their "aha!" moment by prompting them to create a training course.

If you don’t want to start using the tool immediately, you can skip this step, access the platform, and explore it first.

Once you enter the platform, an embedded onboarding checklist welcomes you:

Although it might not be as eye-catching as a pop-up onboarding checklist, it is still highly visible in the UI. It appears at the top of the screen, is fairly large, and is not hidden in the sidebar or feature pages.

The checklist includes a progress bar and starts with a certain percentage of completion, motivating users to continue.

SafetyCulture also offers interactive feature tours and tutorials:

These tours and tutorials are brief, displaying the total number of steps and providing skip buttons within the tooltips. If you want to follow the tour but prefer not to complete the task alongside the guide, you can simply skip the step and move to the next one.

There isn’t much formatting or visual enhancement in these tooltips. However, the copy is short and to the point, so the lack of visuals or formatting doesn’t overwhelm the user.

SafetyCulture also utilizes overlay modals for short instructions and value propositions: 

For example, in this case, it guides users through the steps of brand customization. The left side displays a preview, while the right side contains the customization settings.

Using onboarding modals like this helps motivate users to complete key tasks that lead them to their "aha!" moment. This approach simplifies the process and breaks down potentially tedious tasks into smaller, more manageable steps.

➡️ Check out the whole study and Miro board to see more notes on 360Learning’s, Synthesia’s, and SafetyCulture’s user experiences.

P.S. There are also notes on Articulate’s and Graphy’s user experiences and onboarding flows on the board!

Not-That-Good Onboarding Flows of Big EdTech Companies

W3Schools

W3School is a coding and web-development platform that offers tutorials, courses, and certificate programs. Here’s how it onboards new users 👇🏻

When you first sign up for the platform, a welcome modal with friendly and engaging copy (and lots of emojis) introduces the key features/capabilities of the platform and encourages you to invite your friends and teachers.

The extensive use of emojis, along with the instant encouragement to promote a tool you’ve just signed up for without having tried a single feature, might annoy some users. 

Additionally, when the modal only welcomes the user and introduces the key features, the “What’s New?” title might confuse some users. Is this a welcome message? A feature release note? A sales message?

Now, the in-app guidance on the platform is very limited. 

There’s no product tour, onboarding checklist, or tooltips explaining where features are and what they do. This lack of guidance continues when you go to your learning page as well.

No tooltips, no hotspots, no modals —nothing in terms of onboarding.

There’s also no in-app tutorial on how to create a learning path.

There could be some suggestions on how to create a manageable learning path that increases your likelihood of successfully achieving all your learning objectives, such as a recommended order of skills.

W3Schools uses tooltips/modals at times, but you need to complete certain tasks yourself and earn the right to their guidance...

Here’s an example:

Once you manage to navigate the UI, create a learning path for yourself, and start a tutorial, this ☝🏻 modal will welcome you to the tutorial.

It includes a visual from the UI and introduces certain course navigation buttons. It mentions a progress bar you can check to see how much progress you’ve made, and you can continue your learning path with the “Pathfinder Navigator”.

However, we don’t know which button in the visual is the 'Pathfinder Navigator' (or if it’s even one of them), nor do we understand what other capabilities this fancy-sounding feature offers.

In short, W3Schools mostly leaves their users to figure out how to use and navigate the platform on their own. And when they do provide in-app guidance or communication, the message isn’t very clear. 

Now, let’s get back to the study and statistics ⬇️

Onboarding Materials Review

In our study, we analyzed 30 EdTech companies from our user base to uncover product adoption and user onboarding trends. 

We looked at:

• Onboarding checklists
• Hotspots
• Interactive guides
• Resource centers
• In-app surveys
• Segmentation

Although there are many similarities in how EdTech companies approach user onboarding and in-app education, we identified distinct use cases and varying tendencies in feature adoption.

Each of them is unique, shaped by its growth stage, user base, and specific needs. 

And these differences influence their onboarding strategies and the features they prioritize.

Here are the common onboarding use cases and purposes we found:

• Streamlining user guiding for teachers and students
• Automating processes
• Enhancing segmentation and targeting
• Providing in-app education
• Announcing new features
• Boosting engagement and adoption
• Shortening the learning curve
• Reducing the workload for customer-facing teams (e.g., success, support)

We also categorized these EdTech companies based on their Monthly Active Users (MAU) to understand whether or not the size of a company’s user base plays a role in their onboarding strategies. For that, we draw the line from 5,000 MAU and compared those below and over it. 

Here’s the rest of our findings 👇🏻

Onboarding Checklists

Onboarding checklists are lists of recommended actions for users to complete during the onboarding process. They gather relevant guides and information together and create a smooth and organized flow for the user to follow. 

Here’s an example onboarding checklist and a congratulations message that pops up once the user’s completed all the steps on a checklist:

Onboarding checklists:

• ✅prevent user confusion and overwhelm
• ✅create a structured and meaningful onboarding experience 
• ✅visualize progress and gamify the learning experience 
• ✅highlight a clear path to the "aha" moment
• ✅motivate unengaged users to complete steps and take action

How EdTech Companies Use Onboarding Checklists

According to our research, 48% of EdTech companies use at least one onboarding checklist, and an average EdTech company uses more than 2 checklists at the same time. 

And the average number of steps included on a checklist is 4. 

The number of active checklists really depends on several factors, such as the diversity of the company’s user base and use cases, the complexity of the product, the number of key features, the extent of personalization and in-app guidance a company wants to offer in general.

Power users of onboarding checklists manage up to 13 checklists simultaneously.

We've also observed a correlation between a company's MAUs and the number of checklists they manage. 

Companies with more than 5,000 monthly active users typically manage an average of 9 checklists simultaneously, whereas this number drops by more than a third, down to just 2 checklists, for companies with fewer MAUs.

The average number of steps in a checklist remains consistent, unlike the number of checklists. This is primarily because the distinction between an inclusive, educational checklist and one that feels intimidating or more like a storage list is not influenced by the number of users a company has.

Interactive Guides

Interactive guides are in-app tutorials consisting of explanatory and engaging steps. They educate users effectively and minimize the learning curve to ensure a smooth user journey.

Here’s an example of what the beginning, middle, and end of an interactive guide might look like:

Interactive guides:

• ✅assist users during their first experience with your product 
• ✅improve feature activation 
• ✅reduce early churn

How EdTech Companies Use Interactive Guides

On average, an EdTech company uses 11 interactive guides.

This number, again, depends on the complexity of a product and the company’s segmentation and in-app guidance preferences/ strategies. Companies with more user segments and/or more complex features and UIs tend to create more interactive guides. 

For example, the average number of interactive guides can rise up to 50 interactive guides for school and case management companies.

There’s, again, a correlation between the material usage and the MAU of a company 👇🏻

Companies with less than 5,000 MAU use significantly fewer interactive guides than those with 5,000+ MAUs. 

Hotspots

Hotspots are static info-boxes that expand when triggered, offering a non-intrusive way to educate and engage users. They enhance understanding and reduce friction within the interface.

Here’s an example hotspot:

Hotspots:

• ✅educate users about a feature 
• ✅provide contextual support and/or tip
• ✅announce new features and/or updates 

How EdTech Companies Use Hotspots

According to our study, 41% of EdTech companies use at least one hotspot for various reasons. And among those that do, the average number of hotspots actively used simultaneously is 5.

Hotspots are especially valuable for companies with comprehensive, all-in-one products and those serving less tech-savvy users. 

They also bridge the knowledge gap quickly and with relatively less effort for both users and companies, compared to extensive guides and checklists. This is one reason they are more popular among companies with higher MAUs.

They're fast, lightweight projects!

In-app Surveys

In-app surveys are forms that collect user feedback directly within your app. They enable you to integrate a feedback loop into the user experience and encourage higher response rates and more authentic user input.

Here’s an example in-app survey:

In-app surveys:

• ✅help measure user satisfaction directly within your product
• ✅ensure maximum engagement and actionable insights
• ✅help validate new features or changes

How EdTech Companies Use In-app Surveys

In-app surveys are not a top onboarding tool among EdTech companies, despite their popularity in industries like e-commerce, PropTech, and HRTech.

Only 31% of EdTech companies collect user feedback through in-app surveys, with an average of just 1 active survey at a time across all MAU levels. 

In contrast, the in-app survey usage rate across all industries is 42%, rising to 54% for HRTech, 58% for PropTech, and 60% for e-commerce. This puts EdTech’s 31% usage rate well below the industry average.

And this low trend remains consistent across all MAU ranges. 

Regardless of size, EdTech companies do not use many in-app surveys at the same time.

Resource Centers

Resource centers are centralized hubs providing educational materials and support tools within your app. They offer in-app support and self-service options, including FAQs, help articles, guides, and seamless integration with your own knowledge base. 

Here’s what a resource center looks like:

Resource centers:

• ✅make onboarding accessible by incorporating checklists and guides
• ✅serve different learning styles by combining text, videos, and interactive elements 
• ✅automate and centralize user education 
• ✅help reduce support ticket volume 

How EdTech Companies Use Resource Centers

52% of EdTech companies utilize resource centers to provide in-product guidance.

The resource center usage rate across all industries is 47%. With a usage rate of 52%, EdTech companies exceed the overall industry standard.

However, EdTech companies utilize only 1 resource center on average, compared to the industry average of 3.

There’s a slight difference based on MAU here, too. Companies with higher MAU numbers (5,000+) use on average 2 RCs. 

Segmentation

Segmentation is a practice that allows you to create user groups with similar characteristics based on data like interaction rate or subscription plan. 

It is the backbone of UX personalization. 

Through segmentation, you offer different user flows, onboarding materials, product announcements, or feature promotions to different user groups (segments).

Segmentation allows you to:

• ✅tailor onboarding flows based on different use cases
• ✅clear friction and address pain points for different user groups
• ✅match the varying technical expertise of different users
• ✅optimize feature adoption and engagement strategies

How EdTech Companies Use Segmentation 

Segmentation is a highly used strategy among EdTech companies. Based on our research, 73% of EdTech companies create user segments to personalize their users’ experience. 

The average number of user segments managed by an EdTech company is 8.

This is lower than the overall industry average of 15, with sectors like FinTech, HealthTech, and customer experience platforms managing an average of 20 to 25 segments on average.

Similar to onboarding checklists and interactive guides, we’ve observed that the number of average user segments increases with higher MAUs. Companies with higher MAUs manage more segments compared to those with lower MAUs. 

In fact, EdTech companies with higher MAUs use three times as many segments as those with lower MAUs.

Key Takeaways

Here are our main observations about the way EdTech companies utilize onboarding materials and product adoption strategies 👇🏻

Segmentation is the Key Reason for More Onboarding Materials

Segmentation plays a crucial role in how EdTech companies structure their onboarding experiences. Our analysis revealed that companies with more segmented user bases also tend to have higher usage of interactive features like checklists, guides, and hotspots. 

This makes sense —personalized experiences are more effective in driving product adoption.

 And segmentation allows companies to deliver the right onboarding materials to the right users at the right time.

EdTech Companies Love Organizing and Systematizing In-app Education

Another trend we observed is that EdTech companies show a stronger tendency to utilize onboarding checklists and resource centers.

While the hotspot usage rate is around 40%, the checklist usage rate is close to 50%, and the resource center (RC) usage rate exceeds 50%. This demonstrates that organizing knowledge and presenting help in a structured, systematic way is a priority for many EdTech companies.

The way information is presented, and its accessibility to users is just as important as the quality of the information itself. 

And EdTech companies use checklists and RCs to tackle those issues. 

Best Onboarding Practices Utilized by EdTech Companies Include…

Personalizing the user experience with onboarding surveys and keeping users engaged within the product through visual elements and/or gamification.

➡️ Many EdTech companies, whether they incorporate detailed and well-planned tutorials or checklists within their products, place special emphasis on understanding their user base and new users. Even if they do not provide extensive guidance through tooltips, hotspots, or checklists, they still conduct onboarding surveys and ask crucial questions during the signup process.

We’re not saying onboarding surveys are more important than tooltips, but they seem to be the best starting point for onboarding flows —at least for EdTech companies.

After all, you cannot effectively help your users if you don’t know who they are and what they might need assistance with.

➡️ There is also a trend toward gamification and the use of high-contrast visual elements.

To keep users engaged with onboarding elements and processes, EdTech companies often leverage eye-catching contrasts in their tooltips, buttons, and text colors, along with visuals such as GIFs and screenshots.

Those who take it a step further incorporate animations (e.g., confetti) or gamified elements like badges and scoreboards.

To Sum Up…

Certain user onboarding and product adoption practices, such as onboarding checklists and user segmentation, are more commonly adopted by EdTech companies. However, other tools and practices, like in-app surveys and hotspots, are still being explored and tested.

We believe that, over time, EdTech companies will align with industry standards in these areas as well!

If you wanna see how other companies onboard their users, check out our e-book, where we analyzed 500+ companies across 50+ industries 📊