Lenovo Vantage Onboarding
A/B/C/D heuristic evaluation | Onboarding with Lenoov Vantage
Evaluating onboarding flows to guide the next generation of Lenovo Vantage tutorials.
Details
View more working details
Project Type
Desktop App
Duration
1 month. Summer 2023
Tools
Figma, UserZoom / UserTesting
Team
1 UX Design Lead
Design Digest
Design Digest
In 2023, the team began exploring a new onboarding experience for first-time users of Lenovo Vantage—short, interactive tutorials designed to help people understand key features right when they need them. This work coincided with the broader Vantage 4.0 redesign, which transitioned the product to Lenovo’s new Cake Design System, modernizing its components, motion, and accessibility standards.
Objective: Evaluate three onboarding prototypes (A/B/C) for comprehension, clarity, and overall preference—while ensuring that motion, layout, and interaction patterns aligned with the new Cake Design System guidelines.
Participants: 100 general population users (71% new to Vantage).
Result: Design A (dynamic boxes and arrows) was favored by a narrow margin, though all versions tested positively.
Impact: Findings directly informed Vantage 4.0’s tutorial strategy, establishing onboarding standards that balanced clarity, engagement, and accessibility within the new Cake framework.
This research tested three possible onboarding designs to identify which motion pattern and flow structure best supported comprehension without adding friction. The insights determined how onboarding would scale across all primary pages in Vantage 4.0—and how it would integrate seamlessly into Cake’s updated design foundation.
Before: Original onboarding flow using legacy components.
After: Updated design aligned with the Cake Design System.
Introducing Lenovo Vantage
Discover
Discover
Define
Define
The research findings revealed that the biggest opportunity wasn’t choosing a single winning design—it was defining what effective onboarding should look like inside Lenovo Vantage. Participants responded positively to all three motion styles, but they consistently emphasized a preference for shorter, more contextual guidance that appeared within the page they were exploring.
From these insights, the team reframed the goal: rather than one global tutorial at first launch, each major section of Vantage should have its own brief onboarding moment—focused, relevant, and under five slides. This approach would allow users to learn features at the exact point of need, improving retention and reducing friction.
The project also raised broader strategic questions:
How might onboarding feel like a seamless part of the product rather than an interruption?
How might we balance motion and clarity, ensuring that dynamic cues guide rather than distract?
And how might we design a system that scales across multiple features, yet still feels personal and accessible to every user?
These questions guided the design recommendations that followed and shaped the foundation for a more intuitive onboarding framework across Vantage 4.0.
Design
Design
The team tested three high-fidelity designs in an unmoderated remote study:
Design A: Boxes and arrows move dynamically
Design B: Boxes are static, arrows move
Design C: Navigation at bottom, arrows move
Participants ranked each flow for clarity, usability, and overall appeal. A heuristic review was also conducted to surface potential accessibility issues.
Demographics highlighted that most were tech-savvy users, with 3 % self-identifying color blindness but no other reported barriers to use.
Research Goals:
Measure tutorial engagement and retention across animation types.
Identify which motion patterns aid comprehension vs create distraction.
Support product strategy decisions on whether to prioritize onboarding flows per feature page.
Design A: Fully Dynamic Flow with Moving Arrows and Targets
Information appeared through smooth motion: boxes and arrows animated together to guide users’ attention step-by-step. This version created a stronger sense of flow and momentum, helping users understand relationships between interface elements.
It was ultimately the most preferred design, praised for its clarity and pacing.
Design A
"Next" button moves around the screen as the boxes of information and arrows do.
Design B: Static Layout with Moving Arrows
Boxes remained fixed in place while arrows animated to indicate sequence.
This version tested whether users would prefer a more stable layout—one where the “Next” button stayed consistent—and whether subtle motion cues alone could provide sufficient guidance without increasing cognitive load.
Participants described it as clear and easy to follow, but less engaging than the dynamic motion in Design A.
Design B
"Next" button control and information is static as the arrows move.
Design C: Bottom Navigation with Moving Arrows
Navigation controls were relocated to the bottom of the screen, with arrows moving between slides.
This layout explored whether a familiar, mobile-style navigation pattern would improve usability.
While some users appreciated the predictable layout, others found the extra scrolling reduced continuity between steps.
1st Redesign: Home screen
Controls are static at the bottom of the screen as the information and arrows move.
Design testing and validation
I led the UX research and analysis for the Vantage 4.0 Onboarding Study, building on early design concepts and heuristic feedback from the product team. The purpose of the study was to identify which onboarding flow style—motion, navigation, or structure—best supported user comprehension while maintaining clarity and engagement for first-time users.
Method
We conducted an unmoderated A/B/C usability test with 100 participants from a general population sample. Each participant interacted with three high-fidelity onboarding prototypes in a counterbalanced order to eliminate sequence bias.
Design A: Boxes and arrows move dynamically
Design B: Boxes are static, arrows move
Design C: Navigation positioned at the bottom, arrows move
All prototypes contained identical instructional content; only the motion and navigation patterns varied. After completing each flow, participants rated their experience and ranked the designs based on clarity, usefulness, and visual appeal. This mixed-method approach combined quantitative preference data with qualitative feedback to understand both perception and behavior.
Analysis showed that while Design A was slightly preferred, users responded positively to all versions. The critical finding was not which design won but why short, localized tutorials performed best.
Key Insights:
Users retain onboarding information better when flows are short (≤ 5 slides).
Avoid jumping between pages; each core page should have its own brief intro.
Present information contextually when users actually need it (“just-in-time” learning).
Detailed heuristic evaluation results
To what extent do you agree with the statement:
“Overall, I felt the interface was easy to use.”
To what extent do you agree with the statement:
“The visuals in the app were clear and informative.”
To what extent do you agree with the statement:
“I found this flow annoying.”
To what extent do you agree with the statement:
“I would describe this program as "overengineering" a solution to a problem.”
To what extent do you agree with the statement:
“I felt that this design was aesthetically attractive.”
Deliver
Deliver
The study showed that Design A—with dynamic box and arrow motion—was slightly preferred for its pacing and clarity. More importantly, users retained information best when tutorials were short, contextual, and contained within a single page.
These insights established new onboarding standards for Vantage 4.0: 2–5 slide flows, contextual timing, and the ability to revisit tutorials through Help or Settings.
Following the study, Design A was refined as the recommended direction. Updates focused on simplified motion, clearer visual hierarchy, and AA-compliant accessibility, including inline progression animations, optimized focus states, and plain-language copy aligned with Lenovo’s Cake Design System.
Final Design: Live in Lenovo Vantage
The final onboarding experience was based on Design A, refined to align with the new Cake Design System. User feedback confirmed that the dynamic motion in Design A helped guide attention and made the tutorial feel more engaging, so we preserved its sense of flow and pacing while simplifying the interaction model.
To ensure scalability across devices, we made one key compromise with development: the animated arrows were removed. They proved difficult to implement accurately across variable screen sizes and window breakpoints without adding significant technical overhead. Instead, we focused on maintaining the essence of Design A—clear sequencing, visual hierarchy, and subtle motion cues—delivering an experience that stayed true to what users loved, but performed reliably at scale.
Final shipped design that went live in Lenovo Vantage.
Debrief
Debrief
This study underscored that onboarding isn’t just a one-time tutorial—it’s an ongoing opportunity to teach, guide, and build confidence. By shifting from long, generic tours to short, contextual moments, we reframed onboarding as part of the product experience itself.
The findings informed Lenovo’s broader approach to self-guided learning, shaping future onboarding patterns across multiple Vantage touchpoints and reinforcing how education, accessibility, and design clarity intersect in enterprise-scale software.
Leading the research also deepened my perspective on designing for attention and memory. Small UX decisions—like animation timing or slide count—can have a disproportionate impact on comprehension. Effective onboarding isn’t about showing everything; it’s about showing the right thing at the right time.