Grammarly UX Teardown

so this is going to be an unfiltered look at Grammarly's onboarding.

We're going to go through it together, step by step trying to figure out what works and what's not working or at least what can be improved.

All right, let's dive in.

right, let's sign up for free here.

okay, so instead of just taking me to a really boring signup page, we've got the model with product in the background.

So they're almost like teasing us.

Once we've completed this step, we should be able to get into the product hopefully.

sign up should be pretty easy.

We've got Google, we've got Apple, and then we can also use our email address.

So I'm just gonna use my Google account here.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't that simple after all.

there is a bit of an onboarding process for us to go through here, but it does look like it's only a five step process.

so hopefully it shouldn't take long.

We've got a little bit of personalization up here.

So they've just pulled through my name from my Google account.

A really simple question to begin with.

I like that because it's really easy to get started and then we can start building some momentum here.

I'm not sure what's going on on the right here.

definitely think they could make better use of this space.

Anyway, let's answer this and get into the product, hopefully.

So, is most of you writing for work or for school?

So click work.

Next step or field do you work in?

Interesting.

okay, so there isn't many categories here but I do like the fact that we can search.

that works pretty well.

I'm just going to select others so we can get past this one.

Which best describes your role.

Again, I'm just going to put other here.

I do like the fact that we can skip it.

I think that's cool, especially if you don't have time.

I also kind of feel like I need to know why Grammarly is collecting this information.

why does it want to know what field we're working in and you know, which of these best describes our role?

What is it going to do with this information?

Is it going to personalize the experience.

Was this just a data collection process?

We'll find out.

Right, let's click next.

Okay, so this is interesting.

Third step in the process now is prompting me to upgrade to Grammarly Pro.

sure they have their reasons, for including that step quite early on in the onboarding process here, but as a new user, like I just, I just haven't got any value out the product just yet.

I feel like it's far too premature to ask this question.

Although it does say it's free, it's free for seven days.

And I like the way they've presented the free and the pro tariff here as well.

So it makes it really clear I can see what I'm going to get if I go for Pro.

What I am going to guess though is whilst it is free, I'm probably going to have to enter my credit card details here, which kind of sucks.

just don't think we need this friction at this point.

I just get into the product, show me how it works, let me familiarize myself with it and then once I've had some value, then I can upgrade.

so maybe this might be better off, inside the product.

Anyway, I'm going to click no thanks for now.

So this is really interesting.

Given the nature of the app and how, how Chromly integrates into your workflow, I do think it makes sense for them to prompt users to download the app for your desktop, your laptop, whatever it might be, or maybe even the Chrome extension.

So, yeah, I do think this is warranted.

animations on the right.

Interesting.

Maybe a little bit distracting.

I do get a sense of how the product's going to work.

I can see it in action here, which is pretty cool.

Anyway, let's click Get Grammarly for Mac and Chrome.

Okay, so that's just downloading now.

I like the image on the right showing me that I need to open the downloaded file.

I have to say though, when we started out like that sign up form looks super simple and it was teasing the product in the background.

But as we've gone through this flow, you can see that, that it's much more difficult to go through the onboarding, download the product, install it and get set up than I anticipated.

I mean, here's the thing, right?

So even after downloading, installing Grammarly, adding the browser extension, how do I get past this step?

No idea.

Okay, so I think I figured it out after going through the process of installing the Chrome extension.

There was a tiny little link top right which then has taken me to the home page of Grammarly.

But like I've landed here and this is really uninspiring.

Like again, what am I, like left to my own devices to figure this out now?

Like this huge missed opportunity here, not necessarily to hold user's hand, but at least just kind of guide them through this process a little bit more.

we could have had a document here by default that was like talking through how I can get the most from Grammarly, but instead I've got this kind of rather uninspiring empty state which I just.

Just doesn't do a lot.

Yeah, I think I'm going to leave it there, but plenty of room for improvement here.

There's plenty of ways that I think Grammarly can optimize this onboarding and first use experience because right now feels, really underwhelming.

I don't know.

what do you think?