Driving Activation
Designing the First Time Experience
What is Astrsk?
Astrsk is an AI powered role-play platform that lets users engage with AI characters in immersive, interactive scenarios. Beyond simply participating, users can create custom characters and plots, building personalized role-play experiences. While AI role-play currently thrives within a dedicated niche, our goal is to lower the barrier to entry through intuitive, user-friendly design.
Challenge
Astrsk had a severe bottleneck in the Activation stage of the funnel. While user acquisition was strong, the conversion rate to actually start a role-play Session was below 15%. New users lacked the necessary guidance to complete the crucial prerequisites. They felt lost and overwhelmed by the required setup tasks, resulting in high frustration and subsequent abandonment within the first five minutes of product use.
Goal
The primary objective was to strategically address the bottleneck in the Activation stage by completely overhauling the First Time Experience. My goal was to design a seamless, guided flow that clearly articulated the value of the necessary prerequisites, allowing new users to successfully complete setup tasks. Quantitatively, this initiative was aimed at more than doubling the Activation Rate, moving the conversion from sign up to first completed Role play Session from 14% to an ambitious target of over 30% within the quarter.
Project Impact Summary
Activation Rate
(Starting a RP Session)
Engagement Time
(Before drop-off)
My Role: Product Design Lead
Reviewing current product
Analyzing research results
Defining OKRs and product IA
Wireframing on UX flows
UI design
Building design system
Leading cross functional collaboration
Onboarding & managing Junior Designer
Collaboration
Junior Product Designer
Lead Engineer + 2 Engineers
Business Lead
Timeframe
Feb 2025 - Jun 2025
Key Insights & Decisions
Research Method
We recruited a group of first time users directly from the Astrsk community (e.g., Reddit) to conduct remote, moderated interviews and feedback sessions.
Discovered Problems
Critical Lack of Direction: Without any initial guidance, users experienced profound disorientation. They had no clear next step or indicator of required actions. Data showed users would randomly explore for a few minutes before their frustration peaked, leading to immediate session abandonment.
Overwhelming Cognitive Load: The session creation flow immediately failed by presenting all configuration options and choices on a single screen. This severe lack of progressive disclosure instantly resulted in choice paralysis. The complex and dense interface inflated user frustration and directly fueled the high drop off rate even before creating a Session.
Extended Time to Value: The sheer volume of prerequisite setup tasks, specifically the requirement to create Characters, Plot, and Flow before starting a Role play Session, demanded too much time and effort from new users. Many of them perceived this front loaded work as undue friction, causing them to churn before experiencing the product's core entertainment value and thereby failing to convert from sign up to an Activated User.
Overwhelming cognitive load with lack of guidance
The Solution
The core design strategy directly targeted the activation problems by prioritizing guidance and rapidly accelerating the time to value. We achieved this through a multi-faceted approach centered on value-driven education and progressive disclosure.
Mission based onboarding experience: We implemented a Mission & Reward dashboard, which users were routed to upon first entry. This experience provided essential education on the relationship between a Session and its prerequisite assets (Characters, Plot and Flow). It guided the user through the process of preparing each prerequisite, and provided clear incentives for completing each mission.
Step-by-step Session Creation: We replaced the confusing single screen with a linear, progressive disclosure flow to eliminate cognitive overload and provide step-by-step guidance during session creation.
Prepared default assets: We prepared default assets (Characters, Plots and Flows) to give new users an immediate, low-effort path to bypass complex setup, dramatically shortening the Time to Value. For users who wanted to experience the Role-play Session right away, this allowed them to simply plug in the prepared assets and start instantly.
Users naturally learn as they complete missions
A step-by-step approach helps users accomplish more without feeling overwhelmed
Providing default assets allows users to get started right away
Design Artifacts
First Time Experience Review
To uncover friction in the first-time experience, I conducted a thorough review of the existing user flow. I evaluated the experience both as a user and as a Product Designer, noting pain points, usability gaps, and areas of confusion. I also analyzed insights from previous user research to identify common drop-off points and determine the underlying causes, laying the groundwork for targeted design improvements.
Mapping friction points in the user journey that drove low activation
Onboarding Pattern Analysis
I conducted a competitive analysis of different onboarding patterns to determine the most effective strategy for mitigating cognitive overload and ensuring successful Activation. This allowed us to select a pattern that prioritized guided learning without sacrificing user autonomy.
I evaluated options based on complexity, learning effectiveness, and potential for friction, ultimately leading to the selection of a hybrid model centered on the Setup Checklist and Gamified Onboarding principles.
Strategic evaluation of onboarding patterns to select the optimal solution
Session Create Wireframes
This wireframe sequence illustrates the core execution of our solution transforming the complex single-screen experience into a guided, systematic flow. To directly address the overwhelming cognitive load and lack of guidance, I leveraged the principle of Progressive Disclosure breaking down the previously dense configuration screen into manageable, dedicated steps.
Eliminating cognitive overload with a step-by-step flow
Conclusion & Outcome
This project was a outstanding success, proving the value of a research and strategic design approach. By accurately identifying and analyzing the points of friction in the legacy flow, we were able to solve the critical activation barrier that was leaking our new users.
High Impact Results
The redesign immediately translated into exceptional business metrics, accelerating the user journey and securing retention:
The project delivered a 157% relative increase in our most critical growth metric, raising the Activation rate (conversion from sign up to first Role-play Session) from 14% to 36%.
The average first Engagement time, before dropping off, increased from approximately 4 minutes to over 11 minutes, demonstrating successful user guidance through the essential setup prerequisites.
Ready to see the Full Project?
I'm excited to share the deep dive into this project!
Please contact me to schedule a portfolio review.
jtk8682@gmail.com