A Better Onboarding Experience for Zilliz
Team
1 Product designer 1 Product manager 1 Engineer
Contribution
User research High-fidelity prototype Stakeholder interview
Tools
Figma Figma make
Role
Product Designer
Impact and Expected outcomes
Turning one-off onboarding into a guided, end-to-end activation journey, aligning product education with user intent and surfacing upgrades at the moment of value.
+ 36%
Activation rate
+ 9%
Conversion rate
- 18%
drop-off rate
Background
What is Zilliz?
What is my role?
Zilliz is a vector database platform that helps developers build AI‑powered applications, serving 10,000+ enterprise users globally.
During my internship, I refactored the onboarding experience for new users to clarify the core setup tasks, surface contextual information when users need it, and create stronger opportunities for free‑to‑paid conversion inside the product.
Problem definition
Funnel analysis of user drop-off through onboarding
62%
of new users never reached their first value moment - cluster creation.
Step2 Welcome onboarding guide
Step3 Choose a cluster plan
76%
of users never get activated and experienced the platform's core function - vector search.
I conducted an end-to-end flow analysis to diagnose the root cause.
Step1 Sign up
Step4 Main dashiboard
Design principal
Continuous Guidance
Provide persistent, step-by-step guidance so users always know what's next throughout the journy.
Design solution
Onboarding over view
Contextual Support
Make documentation contextual to support users when needed, rather than a distraction from the primary flow.
Actionable Upgrade
Transform upgrade messaging from passive information into actionable conversion opportunities.
I redesigned onboarding as a persistent, in-product journey that aligned each step with user intent and scaffolded them toward their first vector search.
Onboarding guidance present throughout the journey
Current step highlighted
Next action clear
Contextual support
Positioned Quickstart docs to the cluster creation waiting state, when users have downtime and are primed to learn what's next, reducing user drop-off.
Clear upgrade action
Before
After
Learnings
Context matters
The biggest lesson from this project: context matters more than content. Moving the documentation link didn't require new copy or design, just better timing. This taught me to look for leverage points in the user journey where small changes create outsized impact, rather than assuming every problem needs a big solution.
Iterations!
I learned to work quickly through multiple rounds of refinement while strategically seeking feedback from experienced teammates to validate my direction.
Communication
I learned to involve engineering early. Sharing rough concepts before polishing designs helped me understand what was feasible and avoid costly rework.