How might we design a cohesive onboarding experience for a foreign market? (Onboarding & home page design)
Summary
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Background
Helsi is a relaunch of the Kazakhstani fitness app 1Fit, adapted for the London market.
1Fit is a subscription-based fitness platform designed to provide access to various sports and fitness activities. It operates on a model similar to ClassPass, allowing users to access multiple gyms, yoga studios, martial arts classes, dance studios, and swimming pools through a single membership. The platform offers an easy-to-use mobile app where users can find and book fitness classes in their city. When I joined the team, the company had just launched an MVP version of Helsi—a streamlined redesign of 1Fit with essential features.
Challenge
Helsi needed to attract early-stage customers and help them quickly understand the product’s value.
Helsi’s expansion into London was fully self-funded, so we had to prove demand quickly and be selective about where we invested time and resources. I was also expected to contribute to key product decisions from day one, with little time to build context around the product, users, and market.
👀 Spoiler
One month later, leadership decided to exit the London market and discontinue Helsi. The UK expansion was proving to require more time and resources than initially expected, so the company shifted its focus to neighbouring markets, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where expansion could be faster and more cost-efficient.
Task
My first task from the product manager was to design onboarding screens for first-time users as part of the sign-up flow.
Unlike 1Fit, Helsi had no onboarding experience, so new users entered the product with little context about what it was or how it could help them. Below is an As-Is sign up process of Helsi.
Competitive Analysis
I looked at how five fitness apps introduced themselves to new users before deciding what Helsi should communicate first.
I went through the sign-up and onboarding flows of 5 fitness apps. Only ClassPass was a direct competitor, offering access to different types of studios and activities. Buddy was an adjacent competitor with one membership across gyms in several European countries, while the remaining apps focused mainly on access to multiple gyms.
Exploration
I explored two ways to introduce Helsi, then chose the one that got users to the product with less friction.
I designed two alternative onboarding flows. One guided users toward their first booking, while the other introduced Helsi through a simpler, more linear experience.
I moved forward with the simpler direction, then shortened it further so users could enter the app sooner and experience Helsi’s value for themselves.
Finalizing Flow
New conversion data helped us decide where onboarding should sit in the user journey.
After creating the wireframes, I presented the proposed flow to the team. Our Marketing Director shared that Helsi already had a strong install-to-sign-up conversion rate, meaning sign-up wasn’t a major drop-off point. We therefore decided not to interrupt the registration flow and moved onboarding to after sign-up instead.
Constraints
Speed was the priority, so I had to make Helsi feel distinct without rebuilding everything from scratch.
I realized that by keeping the same layouts but changing the imagery, I could significantly shift the look and feel without adding much development effort.
Signup Screen Design
I used the sign-up screen to make Helsi feel more inclusive and energetic.
Since Helsi was entering the UK market, I wanted the imagery to reflect a broader range of people and make the product feel more inclusive from the first interaction. I arranged the imagery vertically so it visually extends upward, creating a feeling of motion and energy that fits a fitness product.
Onboarding Design
Some of Helsi’s strongest benefits were already there, users just didn’t know about them.
One of our goals was to increase InBody scan bookings. Instead of simply showing the machine, I used a realrelatable transformation story to explain why body composition matters and highlighted that Helsi offered the scan for free, compared with an average price of £140 in London.
Helsi automatically gave users a 14-day free trial, but this benefit was never clearly communicated. I added a dedicated activation screen so users could consciously opt in and better understand what they were getting.
Home Page Design
I carried the InBody story from onboarding into the home page to create a more connected experience.
My next task was to redesign the home page. To strengthen the connection with onboarding, I interviewed a friend who had a positive experience with InBody and turned her story into an article. I placed it as the first major block on the home page, giving users more context on why body composition matters and reinforcing the value of the free scan.
Impact
What I’d Have Measured
Since Helsi left the London market before the new experience could be tested, I wasn’t able to measure its impact. Looking back, I would focus on whether the new experience helped users reach their first meaningful action without creating additional friction:
Activation (Primary metric): Percentage of new users who booked their first class during the 14-day trial.
Onboarding drop-off (Guardrail metric): Compare the original download → sign-up → home funnel with the new download → sign-up → onboarding → home funnel to ensure the added screens did not reduce the number of users reaching the product.
InBody engagement (Supporting metric): Track clicks on Book Free Scan from onboarding and the home-page article, and measure how many converted into actual scan bookings.
Time to first booking (Supporting metric): Measure how long it took new users to book their first class after signing up.
