Ajua

The Challenge

Ajua empowers businesses to understand and engage with their customers through surveys, CRM tools, and data analytics. However, the platform faced a critical challenge: new users were struggling to complete the onboarding process, with completion rates hovering under 35%. This poor first impression was preventing businesses from experiencing Ajua's full value, directly impacting user activation and long-term retention.

As a junior designer joining the team, I was tasked with understanding why users were dropping off and redesigning the experience to create a smoother path to value.

My Role

As a UI/UX Designer, I took ownership of the complete onboarding redesign across both web and mobile platforms. My responsibilities included:

• Analyzing existing user flows and identifying friction points

• Conducting stakeholder interviews to understand business requirements

• Collaborating with customer success teams to gather user feedback

• Designing intuitive user interfaces that reduced complexity

• Working closely with engineering teams to ensure feasible implementation

• Testing design iterations with real users

• Presenting solutions to leadership and cross-functional teams

Discovering the Problem

Working within my first three months at Ajua, I took an investigative approach to understand the onboarding challenges:

User Feedback Analysis: I collaborated with our customer success team to review support tickets and user complaints. The patterns were clear: users felt overwhelmed by the initial setup process and couldn't see immediate value.

Flow Mapping: I mapped the existing onboarding journey and identified major friction points:

• Too many steps required before users could see platform value

• Complex form fields that weren't clearly explained

• Lack of progress indicators leaving users uncertain about completion

• Inconsistent interface elements between web and mobile

• Missing contextual help and guidance

Stakeholder Alignment: I worked directly with product delivery managers and leadership to understand business goals and constraints, ensuring my design solutions would align with both user needs and company objectives.

The Solution: Streamlined Value Discovery

My redesign focused on three core principles:

1. Immediate Value Demonstration I restructured the flow to show users platform capabilities early, rather than requiring complete setup first. Users could explore key features with sample data before committing to full configuration.

2. Progressive Disclosure Instead of overwhelming users with all setup options upfront, I designed a step-by-step approach that revealed complexity gradually, allowing users to build confidence as they progressed.

3. Contextual Guidance I introduced helpful tooltips, progress indicators, and contextual explanations that guided users through each step without making them feel hand-held.

The result?

Implementation & Collaboration

Working closely with the engineering team, I:

• Created detailed design specifications and component documentation

• Participated in sprint planning to ensure realistic implementation timelines

• Conducted design reviews to maintain quality during development

• Iterated on designs based on technical constraints and feasibility

The collaborative approach ensured smooth implementation without compromising the user experience vision.

Impact & Results

The redesigned onboarding experience delivered measurable improvements:

Primary Metrics:

• Completion Rate: Increased from under 35% to approximately 62% within two months of launch

• Time to Value: Users could access core platform features significantly faster

• Support Reduction: Decreased onboarding-related support tickets by 15%

User Feedback: Post-launch user feedback showed improved satisfaction with the initial platform experience, with users commenting on the clarity and ease of getting started.

Cross-Functional Impact

Beyond the immediate design improvements, this project:

• Established closer collaboration between design and customer success teams

• Created reusable design patterns that improved consistency across other platform areas

• Demonstrated the business value of user-centered design to leadership

• Set new standards for user experience quality across the product

Key Learnings

This project taught me invaluable lessons about strategic design:

Start with Understanding: Before jumping into solutions, deeply understanding user pain points and business constraints was crucial for creating effective designs.

Collaboration is Key: Working closely with customer success, engineering, and leadership teams ensured solutions that were both user-friendly and business-viable.

Iterate Based on Data: Using real user feedback and support data to guide design decisions resulted in more effective solutions than assumptions alone.

Think Systems, Not Just Screens: Creating consistent patterns and components had impact beyond the immediate project, improving overall platform coherence.

Looking Forward

This early career experience shaped my approach to product design, emphasizing the importance of:

• Leading with user research and data

• Building strong cross-functional relationships

• Measuring and communicating business impact

• Creating scalable design solutions

The success of this project demonstrated that even junior designers can drive significant business impact when they take ownership, collaborate effectively, and focus on solving real user problems.