Completed onboarding
A healthy completion rate was masking what happened afterward.
All workCase study · Carrot Fertility
Simplifying onboarding to improve early retention
I led a five-week redesign of Sprints onboarding and Day 0, using an unexpected research signal to reframe a journey expansion into a broader retention opportunity.
- Role
- Lead Product Designer
- Partners
- Product · Engineering
- Timeline
- 5 weeks
- Focus
- Product strategy · UX/UI · User research · Native mobile
In one minute
The Brief
Improve early retention by simplifying onboarding and redesigning the Day 0 experience across the native iOS and Android apps.
The Tension
Onboarding looked healthy at 90% completion, but that metric was not telling the whole story. 39.2% never returned, 29% did not log in once during the first seven days, and members who finished the long intake still waited up to 24 hours for access to their real program.
Product context
Carrot Fertility
A fertility and family-building benefit offered by employers, supporting paths like egg freezing, IVF, IUI, adoption, surrogacy, and more.
Sprints
Carrot’s metabolic health app, designed to help members build habits that support fertility and reproductive health. I was the Lead and only Product Designer on Sprints, responsible for all product design and UX research.
Starting point
The numbers behind the onboarding problem.
Never returned
Members were willing to finish onboarding, but many did not come back.
No 1st week sessions
Nearly a third did not log in once during their first seven days.
The project started somewhere else entirely.
The work began as research for a Men’s Health expansion.
We wanted to understand what copy and messaging needed to change to make men feel welcome. Instead, onboarding became the bigger issue. 6 of 8 participants said it felt too long or were unsure how long it would take, revealing a problem we needed to fix before launch.
The discovery that changed the direction
6 of 8 participants flagged onboarding as too long or unclear. That shifted the work from adapting one journey to improving the first seven days for everyone.
Using psychology to turn setup into momentum.
I reduced the mandatory questions in Onboarding and moved the rest into moments where they had context and purpose.
Day 0 was redesigned around three behavioral principles: the Goal Gradient Effect to make progress visible, the Endowment Effect to build investment through participation, and Progressive Disclosure to introduce questions when their purpose was clear. Members added one goal at a time, and each goal unlocked personalized suggestions so the value of setup was immediately clear.
The Goal Gradient EffectPeople become more motivated as they see themselves getting closer to a goal.
The Endowment EffectPeople place more value on something when they feel a sense of ownership over it.
Progressive DisclosureQuestions appeared when their purpose was clear instead of all at once.
Turning a blocker into a shared product decision.
After a long onboarding flow, members still had to wait 24 hours for their first recommendations while human moderators reviewed the AI output. That meant no immediate payoff after setup.
I challenged the delay with data: only 0.11% of recommendations were ever rejected by moderators. I brought that evidence to Product and Engineering and helped push toward a faster experience without losing the safeguard.
The compromise
Skip human moderation for the first round of suggestions so members could begin immediately, then bring moderators back from Day 1 onward.
User research
Two rounds of research took the redesign from shorter to clearer.
The first study confirmed that the new onboarding was easier to complete, but only half of participants understood how their goals shaped personalized suggestions. I refined the copy, hierarchy, and goal-setting experience, then tested again.
By the second round, comprehension had improved and the shorter flow held up, giving the team confidence to move forward.
Completed onboarding
The shorter flow was easy to finish.
Understood personalization
Clarity improved after refining goals, copy, and hierarchy.
Of UXR validated the designs
Research moved the experience from shorter to clearer.
Development
With the direction validated, we could finally build the full experience.
The research gave us confidence in the core flow, so development shifted to turning those decisions into a complete product system across onboarding and Day 0. That meant defining how goals, personalized suggestions, empty states, and progress behaviors worked together in the shipped experience.
- Shorter, reordered onboarding
- Educational Home empty states
- Clearer goal → suggestion connection
- Progressive goal creation
- Goal-completion interaction and animation
Measurement plan
The next question is whether clarity changes behavior.
The research validated that members could understand and complete the redesigned experience. After launch, the real measure of success will be whether that clarity translates into stronger retention and healthier engagement over time.
Day 0 → Day 1 return
Baseline: 39.2%Goal: Increase
Day 1 goal completion
Men 10.2% · Women 26.6%Goal: Improve
Push notif opt-in
Baseline: 73%Goal: Maintain or improve
Week 1 retention
Men 9.1% · Women 25.6%Goal: Improve
Looking back
This project reminded me that the best design work often starts by listening closely to users, recognizing when the problem is bigger than expected, and having the confidence to change direction.