Research Brief - Onboarding Drop in a Digital Therapy App

Observed funnel

Where users leave

App install to account created

100%

Email verified

82%

Finished profile intake

49%

Completed first exercise

37%

Sharpest loss: verification to intake Most common device: iPhone 13/14

Top findings

What matters most

Value arrives too late

Users must complete verification, profile setup, and severity questions before they see a single exercise or coach preview.

Verification breaks momentum

21% of drop-offs occur within 90 seconds after switching to email to fetch the code.

Emotional cost is front-loaded

High-friction questions about sleep, panic frequency, and medication appear before trust is established.

Evidence cards

Observed facts and interpretations

Use the filter to review only directly observed evidence or the inferential layer built on top of it.

Observed fact

Code verification completion drops to 82%

1,084 of 4,860 new users did not return after leaving the app to retrieve a verification code.

Confidence: High

Observed fact

Long pause before profile intake

Median dwell time on the first personal-history screen is 47 seconds, 2.4x the next slowest onboarding step.

Confidence: High

Observed fact

Support tickets cluster around trust

41 of 126 support contacts ask why symptom questions are required before starting a program.

Confidence: Medium

Inference

Users need a value preview before disclosure

The current sequence asks for emotional effort before demonstrating program relevance, weakening motivation to continue.

Confidence: Medium-high

Inference

Email verification likely hurts mobile more than desktop

Interview participants described losing their place after switching apps, especially if they opened a promotional email first.

Confidence: Medium

Inference

Clinical framing is too abstract

Several users expected a short demo or calming exercise first and interpreted the intake as a medical assessment rather than coaching setup.

Confidence: Medium

Evidence map

Facts vs inference table

Statement	Type	Source	Confidence
Users who delay more than 60 seconds on intake are 2.1x less likely to finish onboarding.	Observed fact	Telemetry cohort analysis	High
Users interpret early symptom questions as a high-commitment health assessment.	Inference	18 interviews + 41 support contacts	Medium-high
Showing one low-pressure exercise before profile questions would improve completion.	Inference	Pattern synthesis; not yet experimentally validated	Medium

Voice of user

Interview signal

"I thought I was still signing up, then suddenly it felt like a clinical intake form. I wanted to know what the app would actually do for me first."

Participant 07, 29, completed verification and dropped on question 6 of 9.

"When the code email took a while, I opened another email and forgot why I was there. When I came back the app had restarted."

Participant 12, 34, resumed app after 7 minutes and churned before intake.

Recommended next step

Test a value-first path

Show a 60-second guided grounding exercise or a concrete program preview immediately after verification, then request profile details after that moment of value.

Experiment

Simplify verification

Test one-time passcode auto-fill and a resend timer visible in-app so users do not need to context-switch and guess whether the code is still valid.

Measurement

Track trust indicators

Add a short "why we ask" explainer click event, time to first exercise, and drop-off by question index to distinguish trust friction from content friction.