REIMAGANING FIRST SESSION
World Chess \ March 2024 - June 2024 \ Product Designer
When the company rebranded, onboarding became the first place that had to not only show users the platform’s new bold identity, but also solve current flow’s struggles: new players were getting blocked by the early paywall, stuck on the FIDE ID step or finishing registration without understanding what the platform actually offered.
I took ownership of redesigning onboarding end-to-end: from understanding support issues to rebuilding the flow, logic and visuals. The goal was to collect the information that actually helps us guide players into the parts of the platform they might care about.
* This case study reflects my contributions to the product’s design during my time on the project. All product names, visuals and trademarks belong to their respective owners. The final implementation, current appearance, and future updates are controlled by the company. My responsibility extends only to the design work presented here.
Process
I started by gathering feedback from the support team.
Their reports helped me define main goals:
— Simplify account creation by postponing the FIDE ID connection step until after registration.
— Guide users toward features they might be interested in, instead of leaving them to figure it out by themselves.
— Collect minimal but useful information (country, federation, gender) to support tournaments and content targeting later on.
Early Prototype
My first prototype was focused on giving a highly personalised onboarding. Users could select features they wanted to engage with from the groups: Play, Learn, Compete, Communicate, Watch. This would have helped define their preferences. They would also had selected an experience level and even create kids’ or title-holder accounts. Based on these choices, the next screen would show tailored highlights of what they could achieve on the platform.
The idea tested well internally for its ambition but proved too heavy for MVP. The team reported that six to seven steps in total were too long and a backend structure was snot ready for such data segmentation. And then I decided to simplify the flow.
Final Version
The final flow kept the basic ideas from the previous iteration but in a more manageable way. Social logins were prioritised with prefilled data and FIDE connection moved to post-signup. The “chess experience” step was simplified to federation and gender, phrased with inclusive copy for tournament eligibility. After confirming the account, users landed on a clean “Now it’s your move” screen with four clear paths: Game Screen, Puzzles, Tournaments and Pricing page with PRO features.
This logic not only became easier to maintain Internally and provided the first foundation for future personalisation but also solved the most common users complains.