Behavioural Psychology

Three lenses for onboarding failure

Activation fails when motivation, ability, or prompt breaks — each requires different design work

Motivation

Does the user actually care about the result right now?

Failure: outcome feels unimportant, untrustworthy, or too abstract

Ability

Can the user complete the next meaningful action without confusion or overload?

Failure: path is hidden, complex, slow, risky, or cognitively heavy — most often the real problem

Prompt

Is the product surfacing the right action at the right moment in the right way?

Failure: cue is mistimed, invisible, generic, or missing entirely

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