11 User Flow Examples + How to Inform UX Design With Them
Looking for user flow examples to inspire your UX design process?
This article shows you 11 examples across different user journey stages. We also cover best practices to help you create logical user flows and develop memorable user experiences.
TL;DR
- A user flow is a visual representation of the steps a user takes to achieve a specific goal within a website or app.
- The benefits of tracking user flows include creating user-centered product design, eliminating friction in user journeys, and reducing churn.
Follow these steps to create a user flow that leads to better user interactions:
- Define your objective for creating user flows.
- Discover user paths to app actions.
- Track user interaction patterns.
- Build your user flow diagram.
11 User flow examples to inspire you to create your app flows:
- Basic user flow chart for logging in.
- Registration with authentication user flow.
- Forgot password user flow.
- Onboarding flow for new users.
- Referral user flow.
- Plan upgrade user flow.
- Review generation user flow.
- New feature release user flow.
- Cross-sell user flow.
- Customer support user flow.
- Account cancellation user flow.
Best practices to create a good user flow
- Add visual aids to your user flow charts.
- Plan your paths to accommodate for user mistakes.
- Collect user feedback to improve your user flows.
Interested in combining user flows with in-app analytics to understand users better? Userpilot can help. Book a demo now.
What is a user flow?
A user flow visually outlines the series of steps users take to achieve a specific goal within a website or app.
For a user flow to be complete, it must highlight the starting point of the interaction, steps users take, key decision points along the flow, and finally, an endpoint.
Here’s a user flow example depicting the user journey from login to successful credit card payment. Notice how it includes several decision paths along with alternative paths for troubleshooting issues.
Benefits of tracking user flows
Mapping and tracking user flows give you invaluable insights that lead to smarter UX design decisions and a more satisfying user experience. Here’s how:
- Create user-centered product design: User flows force you to think from your users’ perspective. You’ll understand user behavior better and be able to pinpoint where they might struggle or become confused, leading to design adjustments that prioritize their needs.
- Reduce friction in user journeys: By visualizing user flows, you can identify friction, confusing navigation, or dead ends in the UX. Eliminating these pain points creates a smoother journey for your users.
- Reduce churn: Users are far more likely to stick around when they have a positive, frictionless experience with your product.
How to create user flow diagrams and analyze user journeys
Before diving into examples, you need to understand the thought process behind creating impactful user flow diagrams. Here are the steps to follow:
1. Define your objective for creating user flows
Before creating a user flow diagram, it’s crucial to establish what you want to achieve with it.
Do you want to simplify sign-ups, improve free-to-paid conversion rates, or increase product adoption? Having a clear objective will guide your focus and help you determine which aspects of the user journey to emphasize in your diagram.
Use the SMART goal-setting framework when defining your objectives and building user flow charts. The SMART goal framework indicates that each goal should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
For instance, instead of a broad objective like “improve adoption for new users,” specify the user task you want to focus on, such as “streamline the onboarding process for new users.”
2. Discover user paths to app actions
Implement path analysis to visualize the user journey and find all the possible paths from the starting (or entry) point to where the flow ends.
This allows you to find the following information:
- The percentage of users who take each path.
- Users who drop off along different paths.
- The most popular paths.
- Key actions that drive users from one decision point to the other.
3. Track how users interact with your pages
Observe how users navigate through various pages, what paths they choose, and where they click. Session recordings provide additional insights that show preferred navigation patterns and spot areas of confusion.
By watching the replays, you’ll understand user behavior and spot deviations from expected behavior.
If you want to dig deeper, you can also observe heatmaps, feature reports, and other analytics tools to identify popular actions and the UI elements users love interacting with.
4. Build your user flow diagram
With the insights gathered, visualize your customer journey. Start with the entry point, then chart the user’s path through your app, including actions they take and decisions they make. Then, mark out alternative paths and endpoints, and use different shapes or colors to represent various actions or decision types.
Once your user flow diagram is ready, analyze it to identify areas to improve. Look for steps you can simplify or remove, and consider how to increase product value at each point in the flow.
11 User flow examples to inspire you to create your own user flows
User flow design depends on your needs. For a B2C company like Spotify, they’ll need a music app user flow, an e-commerce payment flow, and so on. The important thing is to understand your users and their needs. For example, based on how people use your tool, you can decide if you’ll be creating mobile screens or sticking to a web app and website user flow.
Ready to get your inspiration flowing? Here are some user flow examples to explore.
1. Basic user flow chart for logging in
This simple user flow represents a user’s journey when logging in or registering.
It outlines the decisions the user faces and the steps they take based on whether they’re new to the platform or just coming back. For new users, the flow details the registration process. For returning users, it leads them to the login screen.
Keeping the login/sign-up process intuitive reduces user frustration and motivates them to engage with the platform.
2. Registration with authentication user flow
This is a more comprehensive registration flow with different authentication options that caters to various user preferences.
New users can sign up with their Facebook or Google accounts or use the good old registration form to authenticate their identity.
3. Forgot password user flow
Forgetting a password is a common occurrence, and a smooth password recovery flow prevents this minor frustration from turning into product abandonment.
In this simple flow, the user initiates password recovery by inputting their registered email. The platform automatically checks for the email in the database, and the user receives a password reset link once verified.
If the email doesn’t exist, users get prompted to re-enter their email address. They’re asked to register if the new email also doesn’t match the database record.
4. Onboarding flow for new users
This example shows how users move through a two-step onboarding flow after signing in. If the user chooses to start the onboarding process, they’ll see tooltips that highlight and explain key features.
The flow also caters to users who don’t want to go through the onboarding process and allows them an option to dismiss it. This is important because many users prefer to explore new tools on their own.
5. Referral user flow
This is one of the user flow examples that can help you boost customer acquisition and revenue.
The flow begins with a page telling users (ideally, power users) about the referral program and what they can gain by participating in it. If the user doesn’t click the CTA, they get returned to the previous page they were on.
However, they see the referral form when they show interest. Once they fill it out, the user gets a unique referral code in their email.
One good thing about this flow is that it includes a feedback loop — if the user doesn’t fill in the form, they are directed back to a previous step, and not to a dead end.
6. Plan upgrade user flow
When prompting users to upgrade, it’s important that your flow is easy to follow and tailored to the user’s behavior. Here is an example that you copy.
The flow begins with identifying the power users. An upgrade pop-up appears the next time the power user logs in.
The user has the option to dismiss the pop-up and end the session. However, if they show interest, the flow leads them to the pricing page, where they can choose a higher-tier plan or end the session.
7. Review generation user flow
Positive reviews help build social proof and make it easy to acquire new users. Potential customers in the discovery and consideration phases of their journey tend to trust word of mouth from other users rather than traditional marketing or advertising.
All companies understand this. However, there’s a delicate science to requesting reviews. Your review funnel needs to target happy customers and make it easy for them to share a few positive words without wasting time.
Here’s an example of such a flow. It begins with an NPS survey targeted at users who have used the app for at least two weeks. After the survey is displayed, the user either:
- Dismisses the NPS survey and ends the process early.
- Fills the NPS survey, rates the app under 9, is identified as either a passive or detractor, and exits the flow.
- Fills the NPS survey, rates the app either a 9 or 10, is identified as a promoter, and is redirected to a third-party platform to leave their review.
This approach to review generation ensures you stay in control of your brand image. While you technically can’t stop anyone from reviewing your tool on sites like G2 and Capterra, funneling NPS promoters to the review sites puts you in charge of your public image to a great extent.
8. New feature release user flow
When you release a new feature, you want to ensure users engage with it immediately. Aside from the potential quick adoption that a good feature release flow provides, it also helps you gather data on how users respond to the feature release strategy, showing improvement areas.
In this simple user path, users see a feature release slideout and are faced with a decision: Engage with the CTA, dismiss the slideout, or navigate away. If the user clicks on the CTA, a new screen appears with details on the new feature.
The other two options end the flow.
9. Cross-sell user flow
Cross-selling helps provide more value to users and also generates more revenue for the company.
The flow triggers when a regular user converts into a power user or the moment they hit a specific engagement milestone.
Then, they see the add-on pop-up contextually along with an option to dismiss the notification. The session ends if the user dismisses it. But if they click the upgrade button, you lead them to a page where they can authorize the payment and successfully include the add-on to their plan.
10. Customer support user flow
This flow begins when a user clicks on the help button. This action connects them to the AI chatbot that asks the user to share their question. The chatbot attempts to provide answers, and the session ends if the user is satisfied.
Otherwise, they get routed to a human support agent.
SaaS companies prefer adding chatbots to their support flows because most user queries are repetitive and don’t need a human agent. This approach leads to faster customer satisfaction and reduces the load on support teams.
11. Account cancellation user flow
Well-designed account cancellation user flows are an excellent opportunity to win customers over or spot recurring reasons for churn.
This example provides a template you can use. The flow begins when the user clicks the account cancellation button. They’re then shown a churn survey in an attempt to find their churn reason and try winning them back.
Some users will be beyond the point of return, so allow them to dismiss the survey if they want and cancel easily. For those who fill it out, automatically suggest alternate solutions based on their responses. For instance, if they’re leaving because they feel the app is “hard to use”, you can offer a live product tutorial at their convenience.
Best practices to create user flows
Here’s how to create user flows that provide valuable insights to understand and improve the user experience.
Add visual aids to your user flow charts
Visual elements like colors, icons, and symbols make it easy to present your flows to stakeholders or colleagues. User flows can get pretty confusing without them.
Once you’ve decided on the visual aids to use, ensure to keep them consistent and intuitive to avoid any confusion or cognitive load when interpreting. You can also share a key along with every user flow to make them easy to understand.
Plan your paths to accommodate for user mistakes
User research shows users tend to make mistakes no matter the app they use. This is why it’s important to design user flows with user errors in mind.
A well-designed flow allows you to quickly correct your mistakes. So, if you accidentally delete an element in your email template, an undo button should be available to save the day.
Collect user feedback to improve your user flows
As you design new flows and update existing ones, collect customer feedback to track the resulting user experience with in-app feedback surveys.
Focus on asking survey questions that reveal potential friction points and improvement areas. For example, you can ask, “How easy was it for you to upgrade?” immediately after users upgrade their accounts. You’ll discover the improvements you need to make.
Conclusion
User flows help visualize the user journey so you’re able to build new paths and improve the existing ones.
Ready to recreate some of the user flow examples we discussed in this article? Userpilot can help you collect direct feedback and gather data on user behavior so you can design engaging user flows. Book a demo now to get started.
