Creating Instant Purpose: New Onboarding for Here.fm
A cool product is meaningless if people don’t know how or even why to use it. I designed a new onboarding experience for here.fm to provide clarity and intention for users.
Role
Founding Product Designer
Client
Here.fm
Year
2024
active time spent
retention
clarity
Too many possibilities, not enough direction.
Here.fm is a playful social platform where friends hang out and build rooms together using video chat, spatial canvases, and media. Its open-ended nature was both a strength and a challenge. Users could do anything, but often didn’t know where to start. Research revealed a key insight: freedom without guidance leads to confusion. New users didn’t need more features. They needed a reason to start.
Room Design
Widgets, Integrations, Content
Lobby Design - Rooms, Friends, More
Understanding the confusion of Here.fm at its core.
To define a clear purpose for new users, I analyzed both user feedback and engagement data. Many first-time users left quickly, saying they didn’t know what to do in an empty room. Analytics and community insights showed that the most sustained engagement came from watching videos together. Both from new and power users. This revealed a simple, universal starting point: co-watching became the anchor for onboarding.
Community Discord & User Insights
Internal Feedback Tools
New User Persona - Teenage Girls
Turning chaos into clarity.
To achieve our goal, I reimagined the onboarding flow as a lightweight, guided journey, with clear messaging from the very first screen. Instead of dropping users into a blank canvas, onboarding now walked them through a simple three-step setup. Choose a vibe, add content, and invite a friend. Each step filled with micro-interactions and playful animations. If no friend joined right away, tooltips would suggest additional activities and exploration. After several user tests and much iteration, we began to see results.
Original Flow
1. Choose Vibe - Quickly customize room and profile
2. Profile - Update Avatar
3. Add Video Player - Learn by doing, set expecations
4. Add Friends - Show where and how to invite
Designing for freedom starts with designing for clarity.
Along with longer higher retention rates and more time spent in a room, user feedback shifted from “I don’t get it” to “This is actually fun!” By designing for purpose, we didn’t just improve onboarding — we unlocked the playfulness that was hidden behind confusion.
Marketing Page