chani - onboarding
02
Chani
2025
chaNI: An astrology app for self-discovery, mindfulness, and healing
CHANI is an astrology app designed to make astrology both accessible and useful. The CHANI app combines ancient astrological wisdom with meditation and mindfulness to help users foster their relationship with the sky and support their wellbeing.
Client:
chani
Role:
Product design
design system
Timeline:
4 months
With:
engineering dept.
Product dept.
my role
CHANI is a content heavy app with astrology terminology that can be hard to parse for new users. As the Product Designer, I was tasked with envisioning an onboarding flow that would guide our users through the sign up flow and set them up for success inside the app. After consulting our customer experience team and conducting user surveys, I designed a 3 pronged solution to tackle our issues. The new onboarding release was a resounding success, significantly reducing customer service issues, and increasing app interaction by 1136%!
Fig. 01 - Swipe to see CHANI Onboarding
tackling the problem
One of the first steps I did was to conduct an audit of our onboarding flows. What I discovered surprised me. Because of our lack of onboarding, our customer experience (CX) team was inundated with customer requests asking for basic help navigating the app or finding content. It was clear I need to parse through these requests with the CX team. I also designed and released a user survey to better understand directly users' pain points.
Fig. 02 - Customer Experience team interview
consulting our customer experience team
Together with the CX team we parsed through the many help desk requests related to the topic and were able to break down issues with onboarding into 4 main categories. We were able to pinpoint major issues along each step of the process that we could tackle with better UX. Read the drop down below to see some of our major takeaways.
Key Takeaways
Issue 1: Because we didn't validate email addresses, once an user forgot their password it was almost impossible to recover an account.
Issue 2: Users were very unclear around what in our app was premium and what was free.
Issue 3: Trouble understanding which type of astrology our app used (traditional vs. modern)
Issue 4: Trouble understanding what to do if they didn't have accurate birth time information
Issue 5: A hard time understanding how to use certain app features.
customer surveys & affinity mapping
To better understand the needs and wants of our users, I created a user survey via google forms. We let the survey run for about two months, and it collected around 500 responses. I went through each individual response and categorized them into themes. Some of the issues that consistently came up was access to education on astrology, and help understanding how to use the app.
Fig. 03 - Affinity diagram and insights
The approach: Continous onboarding
After we had reviewed the survey results, and consulted our customer experience team, I decided to design a 3 pronged approach that tackled issues before, during and after the onboarding process. I chose to weave guidance into the key interactions of our products so new users could immerse themselves in our app, and have the support they need to have a successful experience.
Read More
We chose to pursue a continous style of onboarding for the following reasons
We could connect information to meaningful actions that education enabled, instead of explaining things out of context.
We decoupled the important actions of our onboarding experience so new users in different situations could encounter them at the time and in the order that suits them, using guidance to lead to next steps that build toward a long-term goal.
We used types of guidance that were an authentic extension of our baseline product experience, instead of something tacked on or disruptive.
Before users signed up for the app, we wanted to highlight the app's best features. First impressions are very important, after all. A good first impression can get a user excited about the product.
With this in mind, the first screen new users saw were reimagined. A swipe through interaction showcased our best features and provided a small preview of what was to come when a user was done signing up.
Fig. 04 - Value Propositions
Fig. 05 - Better sign up flow
Our next focus for a better onboarding experience was improving our log in and sign up process. Part of that involved adding verified emails (which we hadn't been doing before) and more information about our free vs. premium content.
New users would now have to verify their emails via code. One of the benefits of doing this is that we increased our pool of “real” email addresses. This was key for effective marketing + sales campaigns.
We also updated how we explain birth time information. After speaking with CX, we also made sure to clarify that we use Whole Sign Houses and the Rising Sign for transits.
One of our more important additions was breaking down what we offered for free and what was behind a paywall – an often confusing part of our app.
This was my favorite part of the redesign because it hit all three requirements for a good self guided onboarding interaction. One, it used a brand element we already had: our teal buttons. Two, users could come back and reference these buttons as often as they liked without disrupting their experience. And finally, three, by placing these buttons in the appropriate places, we could create meaningful moments of guidance.
To make these buttons more effective we:
Added fun imagery that spoke to the content and our brand.
We updated copy wherever needed to help make the information more informative and educational
Placed them strategically in areas we felt users might need more information
Fig. 06 - easter eggs
The results
Our new onboarding flows went live on December 19th, 2024. We let the new flows run for about a couple months before checking the data. Below are some of the results.
🙌 Wins:
Previously our easter eggs saw an average of 11,331 interactions per month but with our new updates, we saw an increase of about 129,060 interactions per month. That is an estimated 1,139% increase in interactions!
A significant reduction in help desk requests for what was free versus what was premium in our app.
A significant reduction in help desk requests for what system of astrology our app used.
Helped about 95% of our old user base verify the email address they used to log in to the app.
The success of the new onboarding flows were a testament to the immense amount of work put in by everyone involved.
further recommendations
Moving forward, and continuing to further improve on our educational content I would recommend adding a glossary accessible via the hamburger menu. I would also seek to customize first time user journeys based on why users sign up for our app.