Acter (Onboarding Experience)
Acter is a platform built for activists, NGOs, and movement leaders to collaborate and communicate securely. However, early analytics showed a significant drop-off during onboarding. New users struggled to understand the platform’s value, felt unsure about data privacy, and often abandoned the flow before completing setup.
This project focused on redesigning Acter’s onboarding experience to:
Communicate Acter’s mission and value clearly
Streamline sign-up and account recovery
Address clarity around data privacy
Encourage early engagement with the community
Solution Type
Mobile App
Duration
2 months
Team Size
3 team members
Figma
Notion
Useberry
Challenge
How might we redesign Acter’s onboarding experience to clearly communicate its value proposition, streamline the sign-up process, address privacy concerns, and enhance user engagement, thereby reducing churn and increasing satisfaction?
My Role
As the UX/UI Designer, I led the redesign of Acter’s onboarding flow, collaborating closely with developers and the product team. My responsibilities included:
Conducting rapid user research and synthesis
Mapping the onboarding journey and identifying friction points
Designing wireframes and interactive prototypes in Figma
Testing using Useberry and iterating based on results
Managing documentation and insights via Notion
My focus was to translate research into actionable design improvements while ensuring a consistent, scalable design system across the flow.
Result & Impact
By simplifying onboarding and addressing privacy concerns, we built stronger first-time engagement and measurable gains in retention and comprehension.
35%
Improved onboarding process
25%
Increased retention over 90 days
40%
Faster task completion
Process
Before proposing solutions, I conducted a quick discovery phase to understand why users were dropping off early.
What I did
Analytics review:
Identified a 40% drop-off within the first two minutes of onboarding.
User feedback review:
New users reported uncertainty around Acter’s purpose and skepticism about privacy/data sharing.Usability walkthroughs:
Observed confusion across several areas, unclear guidance, redundant steps, and information overload.Benchmarking:
Compared flows from privacy-first tools (Signal, Slack, Discord) to evaluate best practices around secure onboarding.
Key Challenges
Core UX Decisions
Simplified Sign-up Flow
Problem: Users were overwhelmed by redundant fields and unclear steps.
Decision: Consolidated the flow into a streamlined, guided sequence with progress indicators.
Why: Testing showed anxiety around data use and too many decisions upfront.
Impact: 35% higher onboarding completion during testing.
Enhanced Transparency
Problem: Users hesitated to link personal data or continue due to unclear practices.
Decision: Added a plain-language privacy reassurance screen and made email linking optional.
Why: Transparency is essential in activist-oriented communities.
Impact: User confidence in data handling improved significantly.
Invite Code & Framing
Problem: Users had no context for why an invite code was required.
Decision: Reframed it as a community entry key—emphasizing trust, safety, and belonging.
Why: Activist groups value safe, meaningful connections; framing matters.
Impact: 20% higher completion among users joining via community leaders.
Testing & Iteration
Testing was conducted using Useberry with 12 participants (activists and NGO organizers).
Key feedback
Privacy explanation edits significantly reduced confusion
Users wanted faster progression between screens
Many skipped feature intro slides, signaling cognitive load
Iterations
Shortened and simplified copy throughout onboarding
Improved visual hierarchy on action buttons
Added a Skip option to reduce friction and support progressive onboarding
Reflections
Through this project, I learned how critical copy tone is—privacy reassurance needs to be communicated in plain, human language to build trust. Testing also showed that progressive onboarding, where users learn by doing, is far more effective than long, instruction-heavy tutorials.
If I were to revisit the flow, I would explore adaptive onboarding that adjusts based on user type, such as NGO organizers versus activists. Overall, the project strengthened my ability to design for trust, usability, and motivation, while balancing clarity with the emotional context of advocacy-driven communities.