Pinterest

The good bits

  • The app’s signup flow, albeit forced (see “to be improved” section after this), is well-structured. It’s 5 steps and comprised of progress indicators, simple questions, and error validation. Users need to validate their email address eventually, but are not required to validate it in order to complete setup.
  • The app’s new user experience is tightly focused on getting the new user to follow existing collections. After creating an account, they are asked to pick their interests and then follow 3 or more boards based on those interests. This ensures the new user gets a customized feed of content (aka personal focus) and doesn’t overload them with other, “nice-to-have” steps.
  • A user guided tutorial presents hints to the user based on their actions. Once a user has scrolled through their feed, tap hints appear on top of pins to suggest the user see more details. Once a user has tapped on a hint, another touch hint appears on the “Pin it” button. And after that, the last hint appears on top of the “View more” button to encourage users to visit each pins related web URL. However, there are some issues with the responsiveness of the user-guided tutorial, which is covered in the “to be improved” section.
  • One of the nicer onboarding moments occurs when the new user taps the “Pin it” hint for the first time. Doing this displays an overlay that gives them more context about what pinning does, before progressing to the next step of the action. If the user taps “Save” on this overlay hint, they are taken to a special flow for the creation of their first board, which provides more context about what boards are for. These two treatments are only shown the first time the user pins something. Subsequent taps of the “Pin it” button conduct the action immediately. This is a form of gradual reduction, the act of showing less context as the user demonstrates familiarity with an action or element.
  • The app also leverages progressive enhancement to reveal more actions for each pin (such as sharing) only after the new user has been introduced to key actions like “Pin it” and “View more.” This, again, shows that Pinterest is tightly focusing the new user’s experience on content consumption and creation.
  • The app uses inline cues for empty state education and ongoing education. It does not overuse overlay hints. It also uses helpful empty state education for scenarios where iOS contacts permission has been denied.
  • Pinterest has a consistent voice and visual treatment for its user education. In-feed cues and overlay hints are gray, whereas blank slate and error validation hints are yellow.

To be improved:

  • Pinterest is primarily an inspiration and content consumption platform, yet there is no ability for the app’s new user to browse content before being forced to create an account. Without a free sample, users may not be inspired to create an account in the first place. Pinterest’s website actually lets a user view a selection of pins without an account; the mobile app should consider allowing the same.
  • The prompt for iOS notification permission jarringly appears  on top of the user’s task to select interests during the setup flow. It has no surrounding context, and thus might be denied by the user because of its irrelevant, interruptive nature.
  • The user guided tutorial is a nice touch but has issues with repeating hints for actions the user has already acted upon. For example, the “Tap a pin to view more” hint continues appearing even after the user has tapped a pin.
  • Additionally, if a user completes actions out of the user-guided tutorial’s prescribed order—for example, visiting a web link before tapping “Pin it”, when the tutorial clearly is built to promote “Pin it” first—the app should track that instead of just continuing to show the tutorial in its programmed order. If Pinterest still wants to reinforce actions the user has already taken, then it should only show the hint one additional time instead of repeating it incessantly.