The Vote page was the foundation of the business, as it collected the peer-referral data that powered the entire model. It was also the most effortful step for users, who had to think of and type in peers' names, something Smartlook highlighted by showing it as the page with the longest user sessions.

Key improvements included a course-tailored headline that anchored the question into a specific and familiar context, prompting users to think within a defined group rather than facing a vague, open-ended task.

Inputs were prioritised and separated from supporting guidance to reduce cognitive load and make the job to be done obvious. Messaging shifted from reward-first to reassurance-first, addressing doubts like anonymity before presenting incentives, which built trust.

Alongside these, elements already present in the flow, such as the countdown and the progress bar leveraging the Goal Gradient Effect, continued to reinforce urgency and motivation, helping sustain funnel performance at this critical step.

The Signup page, final step of the onboarding flow, helped deliver the overall +61% increase in signups, with abandonment dropping by 55%.

The redesign focused on making the form simple, clear, and trustworthy. Inputs were visually prioritised, and some fields were paired with short motivations of why the data was needed, tapping into Carnegie’s principle of framing requests around user benefit and the “Because Effect”, which shows people are more likely to act when given a clear reason.

These changes reduced friction, increased confidence, and kept users motivated through the final step.

To move away from the “scammy” feel of the old UI, I rebuilt the visual language around clarity and credibility. I kept the brand’s orange as the anchor and introduced fresher, high-contrast accents to feel clean and trustworthy.

Since the young age of the targeted audience, I also used emojis headlines and microcopy, adding energy without diluting trust. The outcome: pages that felt clearer and more engaging, another compounding change that contributed to the increase in signups.

Combining all these improvements led to a +61% signup conversion lift, but the impact of the onboarding redesign went well beyond this.
With more students completing the flow, Wiraki gained richer peer-referral data, denser networks (up by ~50%), and stronger signals for the business to act on.

The project proved how much conversion can be unlocked in just weeks without heavy engineering, showing that compounding wins across each screen could transform not only the user experience, but also the company’s ability to grow.

Looking closely at the funnel data, it became clear that 43% of users were dropping in the first two steps, the Welcome and Select pages. Who were these users? Why were they leaving?

At that point I didn't yet have their personal information, that step of the flow hadn’t been completed. But the data still gave an important signal: these users were arriving through an invitation link, which meant I already knew their university and course.

Those steps served a critical purpose: the Welcome page explained the product and gave trust to the user, while the Select page collected information (university and course) and built even more trust through social proof (university logos and colleagues' names).

Here is where word-of-mouth gives its best. When users landed on the platform via an invitation, they already had an initial understanding of the product based on what they heard from their colleagues. Furthermore, we could use the inviter's data to intelligently pre-fill the new user's university and course.

Instead of generic social proof, the names we showed could be people directly in their course. Even better, knowing who sent the invitation, we could sample trusted colleagues close to the user, and if we were lucky, we could even sample their own name. This wouldn't just dramatically increase conversion by jumping two initial steps; the enormous trust and curiosity generated would massively propel them through the rest of the flow.

By redesigning the core app experience and applying the STEPPS framework, we significantly boosted virality (more on this in an upcoming article!). This organic word of mouth created a much stronger sense of trust among new users approaching the platform. first two steps of the funnel, making signup conversion skyrocket with an additional +75% lift.

Here is how the product mechanics leveraged the STEPPS framework:

• Social Currency: Users gained status by reaching the top of the leaderboard and by voting to help friends succeed.
• Triggers: Vote notifications and organic word-of-mouth made the platform naturally talkable and top-of-mind.
• Emotion: Seeing your name on a leaderboard and being voted as the best by peers generated a strong sense of personal pride.
• Public: The public talent leaderboards made achievements visible, organically encouraging others to join.
• Practical Value: Users unlocked concrete rewards simply by inviting their colleagues.
• Stories: The platform embodied a larger, shareable narrative of empowering meritocracy and letting real talent emerge.

The impact of virality went far beyond simply allowing us to skip the first two funnel steps. The trust generated through word of mouth didn't just bring users in faster, it fundamentally changed how they moved through the entire experience.

Because users arrived with pre-filled context, familiar names, and implicit social validation, trust was established before they even took their first action. This resulted in an additional +39% increase in overall conversion.

Most notably, the conversion rate at the critical voting step surged from 72% to an exceptional 94%. Seeing their own name, or the names of close, trusted peers, right at the start dramatically reduced hesitation and cognitive friction.

The effect was equally visible at the final signup step, where conversion increased from 93% to 98%.

The first intervention (refining positioning, reducing friction, introducing urgency and progressive disclosure) generated a +61% increase in signup conversion. The funnel moved from a fragile 23% to a structurally stronger baseline. Drop-offs shrank at every step, and the system began working as intended.

Then came the structural shift.

By leveraging word of mouth and invitation-based entry, we were able to remove the first two steps entirely for referred users. That change alone produced an additional +75% lift, accelerating users straight into the core action with pre-loaded trust and context.

But the impact wasn't just the skipped screens, it was the psychological shift, because virality started bringin users in warmer.

Because users arrived seeing familiar names, sometimes their own, trust was established before the first click. That latent skepticism that once fueled abandonment simply disappeared. As a result, we recorded a further +39% increase in overall conversion, driven by dramatic improvements in the most critical moments of the funnel.

When combined, these sequential lifts transformed the onboarding conversion rate from 23% to 90%: a 3.9x overall increase.