Case Study

Project: Interactive Onboarding
Role: Product Design Lead
Platform: Mobile (iOS)
Tools: Figma, Usertesting.com

Context & Problem

Crunchyroll, the leading anime streaming platform with over 15 million registered users, currently offers a minimal registration flow—collecting only an email and password to create an account. This has limited the personalization experience, resulting in a generic “one size fits all” home feed that struggles to engage audiences from first app-open.

For this initiative I served as the product designer and project lead, driving the project from ideation through user research, prototyping, and testing. I collaborated with a slew of cross-functional teams (Product, UXR, Engineering, Marketing, and Content) to ensure the onboarding solution met both user and business needs and would be technically-feasible within significant engineering constraints.

The Challenge

  • Voice of Customer insights revealed key pain points, including frustration with irrelevant recommendations and difficulty navigating the content catalog.

  • User Segmentation research from the Insights Team provided a detailed view of user types, tastes, and behaviors—highlighting the need for more tailored experiences.

  • Content Discovery research I had driven on prior projects showed a clear gap between user expectations and the generic, non-personalized home feed.

Key Issues

  • New to anime fans felt overwhelmed and struggled to find engaging content quickly.

  • Experienced anime fans wanted more control, better filtering, and more relevant recommendations.

  • Lack of personalization contributed to higher than average early-stage churn.

  • Generic recommendations kept users from discovering the depth and breadth of Crunchyroll’s content catalogue.

  • Poor messaging limited the visibility of Crunchyroll’s broader ecosystem of games, merchandise, events, and more.

Core OKRs

  • Increase early engagement through faster, more relevant content discovery.

  • Reduce time-to-watch for new users to improve first-week retention.

  • Expand and deepen discovery in alignment with Crunchyroll’s vision as the go-to destination for anime.

Discovery & Research

We kicked off with foundational research to deeply understand the pain points of both coaches and members. Through a series of targeted interviews, we gathered qualitative insights from 7 coaches (with experience at Omada, Noom, Fitbit, etc.) and 12 members across a spectrum of engagement. This two-sided research approach helped us triangulate key friction points and emotional drivers.

Explorations:

  • Day-to-day frustrations and workarounds in Workbench.

  • Member perceptions of coaching and their reasons for disengagement.

  • Gaps in clinical support across tools, education, and emotional well-being.

  • Opportunities to align workflows and content with member needs.

Defining the Solution

My vision was to gather only the essential information required to deliver a tailored home feed experience upon the completion of the registration process. To keep this user-friendly, I focused on transparency (explaining why we needed each data point) and speed (adding skip options where possible).

If a user shared minimal data, we would rely on segmentation to guide recommendations; if they provided more details, we would deliver a richer, more personalized experience. Existing users would receive a streamlined onboarding if we already had enough watch history and usage data to fully personalize their feed. This approach would ultimately enhance early engagement, drive long-term loyalty, and open up new avenues for cross-platform promotions through our premium offerings.

  • Low-Friction Data Collection:

    To balance personalization with minimal user effort, I designed a lightweight onboarding flow that asks only the most impactful questions upfront. Users wanting more guidance could opt into additional steps, while those seeking quick access could proceed with fewer details captured.

  • Segmentation Enhanced by Personalization:

    I leveraged our User Segmentation research (e.g., New Fans, Saga Seekers, Anime Fanatics) to tailor each user’s experience. The single mandatory question about anime experience (Low/Medium/High) would immediately place them into a broad segment, ensuring the system could provide at least a semi-personalized feed if they opt out of further onboarding steps.

  • More Connected Content Experience:

    By capturing deeper interest data—like favorite genres, watch history, streaming styles, and content preferences—we could deliver instantly relevant recommendations. This reduces the guesswork for new or casual fans and still caters to the nuanced preferences of hardcore viewers.

  • Flywheel Integration

    I extended personalization beyond streaming to spotlight our larger premium offerings including games, merchandise, manga, and more. If a user chose to opt-in into these categories during onboarding, they would see relevant modules in their home feed as a result. This would allow them to discover Crunchyroll’s full ecosystem organically, driving additional revenue streams and enriching their fan experience.

Design Execution

Competitive & Adjacent Sector Analysis

Before beginning the design process, I evaluated onboarding flows from major SVOD platforms, as well as adjacent industries like language learning, social media, music streaming, and dating apps. This cross-industry exploration revealed where our existing data capture was insufficient, while also surfacing best practices for gathering user preferences. By noting elements like progressive data collection, skip functionality, and clear value propositions, I derived patterns that would best fit our own personalization needs.

Collaboration with Product & Engineering

Working closely with Product Management and Engineering helped us define both the opportunities and constraints of our existing tech stack. I determined which data points we could feasibly capture and store at the profile level, how those inputs would factor into our backend recommendation engine, and how to streamline the logic behind the onboarding flow. This alignment shaped our final feature scope, ensuring we could deliver immediate personalization without overburdening our systems or users.

Wireframes & Iteration

With clear technical guardrails, I created a series of wireframes showcasing a spectrum of onboarding approaches—from minimal, single-screen captures to fully guided, multi-step flows. Together with Product Design leadership, I iterated on and refined these wireframes to balance friction, data capture, and user delight. This ultimately led to a final design that offered branching paths: a lighter approach for users seeking quick sign-up, and a more comprehensive route for those interested in deeper customization.

High-Fidelity Designs & Prototyping

Building on our existing Design System and integrating updates from our in-progress rebrand, I developed all necessary UI components, layouts, and screens to reflect the branching user journeys. Once the designs were production-ready, I created a fully interactive Figma prototype featuring each decision point and variation. I then wrote a targeted test script and launched a usertesting.com study, collecting qualitative and quantitative insights that validated our design assumptions and guided further refinements.

User Testing

Methodology

I built an unmoderated remote user test using a branching Figma prototype. This allowed participants to navigate through different paths depending on how they answered certain questions (e.g., selecting Low, Medium, or High experience). The test itself took participants approximately 15 minutes to complete, during which they narrated their thoughts aloud in real time. After completing the onboarding flow, users reacted to their resulting home feed recommendations and filled out a post-test questionnaire.

Participant Breakdown

I wanted to test anime fans across a spectrum of experience levels who were not current Crunchyroll users. Using a detailed screener survey, I had 15 participants self-select into our primary segments to gather:

  • 5 New Fans, 5 Saga Seekers, 5 Anime Fanatics

Procedure:

Each participant received a link to an interactive onboarding prototype. They were asked to think aloud, describing both their immediate reactions and thought processes. The flow branched at key points in response to user input—for instance, the Anime Experience screen—and presented varied prompts (like genre or language selection) based on user choices.

After finishing the onboarding flow, participants were shown their “personalized” home feed. They then completed a post-test questionnaire, elaborating on what felt intuitive, confusing, or missing.

Data Collection & Analysis

  • Qualitative Data: Video recordings of user narration and written post-test feedback.

  • Quantitative Data: Task completion metrics (time spent, steps taken) and participant self-reported satisfaction.

Findings & Insights

Participants responded extremely favorably to the onboarding process and reported surprise and delight throughout. New Fans found themselves reassured by the guidance provided toward more accessible anime titles in more familiar genres. Meanwhile, Anime Fanatics appreciated the chance to thoroughly customize their experience, reflecting their deeper knowledge base and the stronger opinions typical of highly dedicated viewers.

Key Takeaways:

  • Overall, participants felt like the number of steps was well-balanced, did not cause significant friction, and no user felt the need to skip any individual step.

  • Across the spectrum of experience levels, users found their needs and tastes catered to and felt that the resulting home feed was extremely relevant to their interests and would work as a great jumping-off point for discovering new anime

  • Before entering onboarding, most participants expected to some level of personalization questions during sign-up with genre preferences as the most commonly anticipated

  • Asking for language preferences (subs vs. dubs) delighted users who had strong opinions on audio and subtitle formats.

  • Granular watch history and taste preference refinement was not only welcome from a personalization standpoint, but also increased awareness in high-impact titles and led to a large volume of watchlist additions

  • Participants felt like the messaging around personalization and the need for data capture was both transparent and clear enough, with no need for additional explanation or justification

  • Anime Fanatics sought more specialized options and wanted exclusionary content filters to more granularly refine their recommendations

  • The deeper a participant was into their anime fandom, the more assured, particular, and nuanced their taste preferences were

Next Steps:

With glowing qualitative and quantitative feedback, including an average exit questionnaire rating of 4.6/5, the onboarding prototype has been validated by participants as both intuitive and valuable.

While the study yielded only minor critiques, several key enhancements emerged—particularly for Anime Fanatics who desire greater depth and specificity in their content preferences. In response to their feedback, we would need to expand our genre listings to include niche subgenres like “Psychological” and “Isekai,” as well as add robust filtering and exclusion options (e.g., the ability to opt out of “Shonen” or “Romantic Comedy”). There is also an opportunity to include more thematic or mood-based selections for users who wish to fine-tune their experience even further.

With testing results confirming the viability of my approach, I prepared to move forward by drafting a formal PRD and technical specifications with my Product Manager and Engineering Lead. These efforts would culminate in the development of a proof of concept as part of an internal pilot program.

However, backend system constraints and an ongoing cross-platform brand overhaul have temporarily shifted priorities, delaying the rollout of new features that integrate tightly with our recommendation engine. Despite this pause, the onboarding enhancements remain a key part of the long-term strategy for Crunchyroll, forming a foundational element of the platform’s next phase of fan-centric personalization.