UX writing > Setup guide
A/B testing terminology
Goal: find the most engaging language to encourage task completion
Since I inherited the Setup Guide in 2020, I’ve written dozens of A/B copy tests. Here are a few that saw big results.
Test 1: themes task
Problem: CTR for Themes task was lower than the others.
A/B test: Changed “Customize your theme” to more user-friendly “Design your online store”
Impact: 17% lift in CTR, 8.5% lift in task completion.
Personalizing setup tasks
Goal: create tailored onboarding tasks that help new merchants migrate their store
Previously we didn’t offer personalized onboarding guidance for “replatformers” who were moving an existing store to Shopify – they got the same generic tasks as the folks who were starting fresh. Because of this, the churn rate for replatformers was particularly high.
In 2022, the Growth team refocused on improving the “replatformer “ experience. My job was to create new Setup Guide tasks that addressed the top pain points for replatformers and guided them through the initial migration process.
I partnered with a PM, UX designer, and developer to come up with these new Setup Guide onboarding tasks for replatformers.
Impact: 27% increase in lead to conversion, 22% increase in conversion to first sale.
Before: Guidance only existed on Home
After: richer on-page guidance appears during setup phase
Adding contextual guidance
Goal: offer richer on-page guidance for every setup task to increase task completion
After auditing the old experience using my new layered guidance framework, I noticed we were failing to provide task-based contextual guidance during onboarding. Guidance was only available on Home, leaving merchants on their own to complete tasks elsewhere.
I partnered with a UX designer, PM, and dev team to create and test a new contextual guidance component. The goal was to bridge the knowledge and skill gaps we’d previously identified using user feedback.
The top screenshot shows the original task (organize your store’s navigation) as presented on the homepage Setup Guide. The bottom screenshot shows the new persistent guidance component that appears on the left side of the page.
The task title remains the same, but the body copy changes to provide more detailed contextual guidance around the task. We also built in a navigational component so merchants could jump from task to task without having to go back to their Home page every time.