Should a product designed for both power users and casual/beginner users use one unifying aspirational journey, or must it pick a single segment to serve well?

Martin Gontovnikas · Feb 14, 2024

Onboarding should be differentiated by user seniority — junior developers want point-and-click guidance while senior developers find it condescending and prefer an overview then autonomy

Auth0 A/B tested a click-here tour against a conceptual overview and the aggregate results were nearly identical; qualitative interviews revealed the split by seniority, so they shipped both experiences

21:04 Differentiate onboarding by user seniority junior guided senior autonomous

David Vélez · Sep 11, 2023

Once a consumer product reaches large scale, further growth requires customizing it down toward segment-of-one rather than serving everyone with one product

At half the population, the product is good for some subsegments and bad for others — high-income Brazilians want missing products, and customers in their sixties to eighties find it insufficiently clear and too complex

18:52 At massive scale products must segment toward personalization not one size fits all

Fernando Fanton · Jul 27, 2025

To serve both elite and ordinary users, a product has to connect to the aspirational version of each individual user — 'the Cristiano in each one of us'

What matters is finding what relates to that user and makes them willing to put in the investment

52:17 Aspirational identity framing unifies elite and ordinary users

Fernando Fanton · Jul 27, 2025

Serving both power users and beginners requires progressive onboarding that lets the beginner visualize themselves on the expert journey; the error is exposing the full complex experience to someone just getting started

Products like Duolingo put the novice on the journey towards the identity they aspire to, so the same journey serves both segments

53:49 Progressive onboarding lets beginners envision the expert journey