If the onboarding feels complicated enough that you’re looking for a “simplified path,” that’s usually a signal you need to step back and systematically understand where the complexity actually lives. In my experience (20+ years in product design), teams tend to jump straight into onboarding flows before doing the foundational work that would make those flows obvious.
The best place to start is with a Cognitive Walkthrough — literally stepping through the product as a new user and evaluating every single action for clarity, intent, and cognitive load. If you haven’t run one yet, this will expose the real issues faster than any UX best-practices list ever will.
NN/g has a great primer on how to do this:https://www.nngroup.com/articles/cognitive-walkthroughs/
Once you’ve mapped the real friction points, the “simplified path” usually reveals itself. Onboarding becomes a reflection of product clarity — not a band-aid for product complexity.
If the onboarding feels complicated enough that you’re looking for a “simplified path,” that’s usually a signal you need to step back and systematically understand where the complexity actually lives. In my experience (20+ years in product design), teams tend to jump straight into onboarding flows before doing the foundational work that would make those flows obvious.
The best place to start is with a Cognitive Walkthrough — literally stepping through the product as a new user and evaluating every single action for clarity, intent, and cognitive load. If you haven’t run one yet, this will expose the real issues faster than any UX best-practices list ever will.
NN/g has a great primer on how to do this:https://www.nngroup.com/articles/cognitive-walkthroughs/
Once you’ve mapped the real friction points, the “simplified path” usually reveals itself. Onboarding becomes a reflection of product clarity — not a band-aid for product complexity.