You never have a second chance to make a first impression.

Now that we’ve disposed of the homily, we should note that it is true. For many web sites and most mobile web sites and applications, complexity in setup process should be avoided. Get your customers to the content as quickly as possible. Get your example from lots of “Web 2.0” sites which let you get started just by signing up. Profiles come later.

Perhaps the most striking method of doing this was done by a client whose third-party application was pre-loaded onto devices by the operators. Unfortunately, the application required around 3 minutes of setup. They recognized that the purchase and setup of a mobile phone is a complex and frequently confusing process, and was focused on voice, SMS, and perhaps web. Certainly not their little application.

So they set the application to wake up around 10 days after the phone was activated, and provide the user the value of setting up the application. This delayed setup of a minor application ended up providing the user greater perceived value of the phone service. Had it been buried along with all the other setup processes, confusion, dismissal, or even anger may have occurred.

Original Source: Little Springs Design