Lenovo Welcome - Onboarding

Lenovo Welcome is a pre-installed app on Lenovo devices, designed to introduce users to their new device with guided tutorials, setup instructions, and personalized recommendations. It appears when you first set up a Lenovo laptop or desktop after the Microsoft first run experience. It serves as an onboarding tool, helping users configure their settings and learn about their device’s features. It may also suggest Lenovo services, apps, and promotions tailored to the device type and personas. Lenovo sells over 60 million units annually and an estimated 400K activations daily.

EMPLOYER:
Lenovo

TIMELINE:
6 to 8 weeks

MY ROLE:
Lead UX/UI Designer, Researcher, and Collaborator across a cross-functional global team

TOOLS USED:
Illustrator, Photoshop, Adobe XD, Usertesting.com, Qualtrics, Design System, and After Effects

Note: Due to confidentiality agreements, specific details and assets in this portfolio have been omitted or modified. The work showcased is designed to highlight my process without disclosing proprietary information.

Where the journey began…

Understanding the Challenge

The Lenovo Welcome experience needed to be more user-centered, with a meaningful and helpful onboarding journey. Users were navigating the initial setup without a clear sense of what Lenovo Welcome could offer, leaving essential actions like product registration and personalized guidance underutilized. My goal was to create an onboarding experience that resonated with users, guiding them efficiently and relevantly.

Designing for Connection

I aimed to build an experience that users would immediately connect with—one that showcased the benefits of their new device while feeling personal and unobtrusive. By focusing on a seamless, engaging journey, Lenovo Welcome could better support users in exploring features and services in ways that matched their interests and needs.

To bring this vision to life, my approach included:

  • Developing User Personas: Personas helped tune into what different users sought during onboarding, tailoring each step to be relevant and inviting.
  • Enhancing Device Discovery: The onboarding flow allowed users to explore and appreciate their device, emphasizing features and guidance without overwhelming them.
  • Curating Offers that Add Value: Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, they were curated genuinely helpful offers, empowering users to connect with options that enriched their experience.
  • Making Registration Effortless: Integrating registration into the onboarding process provided a simple way for users to connect with Lenovo, supporting them through their entire product journey.

This redesigned experience puts the user at the center, making Lenovo Welcome an engaging, purposeful start to their journey.

Above: Original layout of the full Lenovo Welcome Experience.

Utilizing Design Thinking Methodologies

Empathizing with the users

Competitor Analysis

Understanding Lenovo’s competitors helps inform design decisions and contributes to the overall product strategy. It also uncovers opportunities to set yourself apart from the competition. The competitors that were analyzed were Dell, HP, Acer, and Apple. This was done by documenting the experiences on different devices and documenting each step along with screenshots, researching reviews, listening to the customer’s voice to understand pain points, etc.

Research Approach

To shape a user-centered Lenovo Welcome experience, I led comprehensive research to understand what users valued most and where they faced friction in their journey. With a mix of usability testing and data analysis, I focused on uncovering insights that would inform a more intuitive, engaging onboarding process.

Key Insights:

  • Valuable Offerings to Users
    Through task-based tests on UserTesting.com, I identified which offerings users found most relevant, helping us prioritize features that enhance the onboarding experience.
  • Product Registration Discoverability
    Task-based evaluations highlighted challenges users faced in locating product registration, guiding us to make it more accessible.
  • Onboarding Experience Perception
    By capturing user feedback on the onboarding process, we uncovered improvement areas to make the experience feel more valuable and seamless.
  • Understanding User Profiles
    Analyzing data from Microsoft Client Portal and Lenovo Welcome metrics, alongside a Qualtrics survey, provided insights into user demographics and device preferences, allowing for a more tailored approach.

These insights became the foundation for a redesign focused on enhancing user engagement, ease of navigation, and a welcoming start to the Lenovo experience.

Define

With the research complete, it was time to uncover the story within the data. I analyzed common patterns, pinpointed pain points, and identified our primary user personas. Alongside assessing the existing design, I developed targeted UX recommendations that would address immediate needs and support future improvements.

From there, I crafted a data-backed roadmap, blending short- and long-term strategies grounded in UX/UI design principles. Presenting this vision to stakeholders and executives, I secured buy-in. I initiated an iterative process that would evolve throughout the project, ensuring our design aligned with user needs at every stage.

Above: Personas created based on device types and usage.

Ideate

Now that I understand the user’s and business needs and the application’s current state, I ideated with wireframes and progressed into low-fidelity mock-ups to test and present several solutions. During the ideation phase, I collaborated with the stakeholders and developers while working in two-week sprints. At each end of the sprint, I presented solutions and worked through any technical limitations or concerns the teams may have had.

After the initial low-fidelity mock-ups, I realized we needed to consider the type of device Lenovo Welcome was launching on and the type of user. Each device and sector had different branding and needs or wants.

For example, the Legion device was dark-themed and for gamers. Gamers wanted different offerings, and I wanted to make sure the experience wasn’t jarring and valuable but also educational. Another example is Consumers, such as personal, educational, or even business users, who use Chromebooks, IdeaPads, and Yoga devices. Their branding was more light-themed, and their offerings would be much different than those of business or gaming.

The first iteration of a low-fidelity mock-up to start the conversation and brainstorming.

Prototype

Below is the Legion flow and also the Personal, Work, and Educational flows that launched. Depending on the device the user has will depend on what type of experience they will receive. And then, once the user chooses what best describes how they will be using their device, is what type of offers and information will be shown to them, minus if they already have one of the applications or offers installed.

Gaming Theme

Personal and Business Theme

Test, Implement, and Repeat

Additional testing before and after launch showed an improved customer experience compared to the original benchmarked experience. Lenovo Welcome is now a responsive experience that appears immediately after the Microsoft Onboarding, but the user is able to either complete or come back to Lenovo Welcome at their own time. Below are listed some improvements that have improved the experience.

  • Personalization
  • A compact, short, and memorable experience with the customer in mind
  • Lenovo branded
  • Product Registration
  • In-app purchases for a warranty upgrade
  • Valuable free or subscription-based offers
  • Apps for You to download popular applications (downloaded in the background)
  • Discovery page to educate the user on their device