Mobile App - Product and Visual Design
Trash Panda - Onboarding
Designing clarity in a confusing grocery aisle.
Role
Product and Visual Designer
Scope
Mobile Design
Illustrations
Marketing Templates
Timeline
2022 – Present
Team
2 designers
2 PMs
3 Developers
Overview
I led the redesign of Trash Panda's onboarding experience after discovering that only 29% of new users were completing onboarding and making it into the app. The old flow prioritized personality and feature explanation over immediate value, costing us users before they ever scanned a product.
The redesign reoriented onboarding around what users actually came to do: make faster, smarter decisions at the grocery store.
Problem statement
How might we shift onboarding from explaining features to showing users immediate value so more people complete onboarding and feel confident enough to start a trial?
Solution
An Interactive and Personalized Onboarding
A shorter, more intentional flow that lets users experience the app before committing to it, while keeping the monetization moment intact.
Interactive Animation
Introduced an interactive scan-and-swap moment that demonstrates value instantly and shifts onboarding from passive reading to active participation.
Personalized Surveys
Collected two high-signal inputs (dietary restrictions and notification preferences) to personalize the onboarding and premium upsell experience.
Contextual Messaging & Illustrations
Used simple illustrations and behavior-based copy to guide users, reduce pressure, and reinforce confidence and clarity while shopping.
Process
1. Audit of Existing Onboarding
Nearly half of users dropped off on the first screen.
2. Research & Key Insights
I reviewed onboarding best practices and behavior-driven product patterns to understand why users were dropping off so early.
Articles: Onboarding Tutorials vs. Contextual Help, Product-Led Growth and UX
3. Exploring alternative direction
What if we skipped onboarding entirely?
I proposed bypassing the traditional onboarding entirely and guiding users straight into scanning their first product.
The concept focused on:
- Just-in-time micro-interactions (e.g., ingredient highlights).
- A contextual paywall triggered after free scans.
- Optional account creation until users experienced value.
- Optional help for users who wanted deeper guidance.
4. Constraints & Trade-offs
This direction surfaced two critical risks.
- Monetization impact
- 90% of purchases occurred during onboarding
- Including the paywall early increased conversion from ~2% to 5-6%
- Experimentation complexity
- Skipping onboarding made clean A/B testing difficult.
A full removal wasn't practical but the direction clarified what actually mattered.
5. Finding the Middle Ground
Balancing business and user goals
We aligned on a hybrid approach: keep onboarding, but strip it down to what earns trust and drives action.
Outcome
Completion rate increased from 29% to 35%, with a tradeoff worth understanding.
The new flow improved onboarding completion by 6% but user-to-trial conversion came in lower than expected. Rather than a failure, this revealed a real tension: users were getting further into the app, but the paywall wasn't landing as effectively in its new context. That finding is now directly informing the next phase of work.
Reflection
Balancing user experience with business constraints meant grounding every decision in data. Completion rose from 29% to 35%, but conversion dipped, which reveals that activation and monetization are separate problems. We solved one. The next version is built around solving the other.
Next Steps
The work continues.
We're currently running copy variation tests on this onboarding flow to improve paywall conversion. In parallel, I'm designing a new onboarding variant that leads with personal goals and achievement, pushing the "how the app works" content back, and bringing the user's why forward.
The hypothesis: when users feel empowered before they see a paywall, they're more likely to convert.
Next Project