Client Notes

They forced us to define activation as “first saved route,” not “account created.” That argument alone changed which onboarding screen we redesigned first.

The audit was slower than I wanted in week one — they refused to comment until the event names matched the builds we actually shipped. Annoying then; useful later when engineering stopped debating ghost metrics.

Workshop day felt more like a rehearsal than a lecture. We left with owners next to each cue change, including who would rewrite the camera-permission string in Bahasa Malaysia.

Extended note: fintech sign-up stall

A consumer finance team booked the flagship audit after day-one completion flatlined following a “faster KYC” release. Install volume was steady; the drop sat between national-ID capture and the PIN creation screen. Our walkthrough showed the new flow asked for ID photos before explaining why the app needed them, and the analytics labelled both steps as a single kyc_start event — hiding which prompt users abandoned.

We recommended splitting the events, moving the purpose copy ahead of the camera prompt, and delaying PIN creation until after a successful ID read. Two releases later, the team reported clearer funnel segments and fewer support tickets about “camera not working,” which had often been users declining permission without understanding the ask.

Extended note: bilingual tutorial skip

An education app serving Malaysian schools asked for a cohort brief after adding an English-only tip carousel. Completion of onboarding looked healthier; week-one return did not. The brief showed the new cohort skipped faster, then stalled on the first classroom feature that still used Malay labels. The carousel had trained English expectations the rest of the product did not meet. Recommendation: shorten the carousel, match language to the school’s preferred locale, and measure feature entry — not carousel completion — as activation.