As a product manager, I bet you could recite your product's value proposition in your sleep. You know exactly what problems it's designed to solve. You know exactly how much revenue it will bring in, how many leads it will generate, and how much new data it will gather.

But the best product leaders think about value from the user's perspective. They know value isn't always obvious, and that you should work with users to help them see it.

Cue the “aha moment”. The faster you get users to their aha moment, the sooner  you prove your product’s value prop to them. That’s why figuring out and guiding users to your product’s aha moment is is key to long-term success.

TL;DR:

• An "aha moment" is that pivotal point in the user journey where they first see the value of your product and why they need it. It’s the spark that ignites engagement.
• Without a clear and compelling aha moment, users are less likely to stick around. Three-step tours have a 72% completion rate, while seven-step tours drop to 16%—so keep it simple and focused.
• Dig into your user data, ask for direct feedback, and run A/B tests to find what makes users say “aha!”
• Resist the urge to overwhelm users with too much information. Instead, focus on simplicity, clarity, and user experience.
• Personalize onboarding journeys, tap into psychological insights, and use tools like Appcues to guide users seamlessly to their aha moments.

What is an aha moment?

An aha moment is a moment of sudden insight or discovery. In software, it’s the critical point when a new user first realizes the value of your product and why they need it.

Aha moments are emotional, memorable, and impactful. They’re what make users want to come back for more. The key is to help users hit that moment quickly—ideally during onboarding.

What does that look like in the context of the user journey? For a ride-sharing app with a simple user journey, it might look like this:

What about a SaaS product with a more complex path to value? In that scenario, the user journey might be as follows:

In the example above, a new user might even experience multiple aha moments as the value of the product really sinks in.

When a user first subscribes to your product, they’re looking to find value in it by solving an immediate need. They usually have some idea of what this value will be—and if your marketing and messaging are effective, they’ll already understand your core value proposition before even trying your product.

That moment things click—when a user realizes that they can truly benefit from your app—is their aha moment. Sometimes users actively realize this moment, while others experience it more subconsciously. Either way, the aha moment is the switch that turns an evaluating user into an activated user. It also often separates the users who stick around from those who churn.

Retention and the power of Aha moments

Chameleon.io found that three-step tours have a completion rate of 72%, while only 16% of tours with seven steps get completed! This tells us that simplicity and focus are crucial in onboarding.

The temptation to show users everything—including the kitchen sink—can backfire. Instead, be pragmatic about what you show. Take your research into "aha!" moments and apply it in your tours to guide users to value without overwhelming them.

A well-designed aha moment can be the key to keeping users engaged. When users quickly see how your product solves a real pain point or makes their lives easier, they’re more likely to stay engaged, explore further, and even advocate for your brand.

The psychology behind aha moments

Let’s take a quick dive into the psychology that underpins aha moments. It’s not just about showing off cool features; it’s about understanding how people think.

Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 thinking can help explain user decision-making. System 1 is fast, emotional, and intuitive—like a gut feeling—while System 2 is slower, more analytical, and deliberate. Effective onboarding should appeal to both systems.

• System 1 Engagement: Design onboarding experiences that deliver immediate value. Maybe it’s a compelling product demo or an interactive guide that shows quick wins.
• System 2 Reinforcement: After capturing that initial emotional engagement, provide more in-depth resources—like tutorials, case studies, or detailed guides—that reinforce the logical reasons to stick around.

By leveraging these cognitive biases, you can create onboarding experiences that feel great and make sense, making those aha moments even more memorable.

How to find your product's aha moment

Pinpointing that magical “aha!” moment where users suddenly see the value in your product can be tricky. But with a bit of detective work, leveraging both data and user feedback, you can discover the exact moments that drive engagement and retention. Here’s how to dig in and uncover those moments:

1. Start with patterns in your user analytics data

To find your product's aha moment, you first need to dig into the data you already have. This is where your user analytics becomes invaluable. Whether you’re using a built-in analytics platform or integrating with a third-party tool—like Fullstory, Mixpanel, or Heap—you should look for patterns that distinguish users who stick around from those who leave.

Ask yourself: Did the users who converted:

• Finish your onboarding experience?
• Continue browsing your app after the product tour?
• Interact with a core feature?
• Connect with other users?

Put together a list of 10 to 20 behaviors (or combinations of behaviors) that correlate with users who stay. The goal is to identify behaviors exhibited by retained users that aren’t mirrored by users who churn. Remember:

• Most retained users AND most churned users = no correlation
• Just a few retained users AND just a few churned users = no correlation
• Most retained users AND just a few churned users = correlation

Finding a strong correlation between certain behaviors and user retention is your first clue that you're on the right track. However, correlation isn’t everything, especially if you're in the early stages and don’t have a large user base yet. This is where you need to further validate or adjust your hypothesis with more investigation.

2. Supplement with user feedback

Numbers can tell you a lot, but they won’t tell you everything. For a more complete picture, reach out to your top users for qualitative feedback. This will help add context to the patterns you’ve discovered in your data.

For example, your data might indicate that users who stick around usually use both your messaging and calendar feature. But when you actually speak to users, you learn that easy team scheduling is the biggest benefit for them. So instead of pushing users toward these two features, you can guide them through scheduling their first all-hands meeting. Talking to users provides you with insight and context that’ll help you better understand the motivation behind their actions.

Reach out with a personal email to kickstart the discussion:

Hey Tywin,

Thanks for using Winterfell! We're so happy to see you using all our features and would love to show other customers how they can have a similar, awesome, and complete product experience. Would you be willing to have a brief 10-minute conversation about what got you excited about Westeros Solutions in the first place? Your feedback will help us create a better app experience for users like you.

Thanks,
Olenna

Talking directly to your users can reveal insights that data alone can’t provide. You might uncover a specific moment that resonated with them or even find out what nearly caused them to churn.

Alternatively, if you’re short on time, sending a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey is a quicker way to gather user sentiment. Segment successful users and ask them what worked and what didn’t through a short questionnaire. Use this feedback to refine your product’s aha moments.

3. Learn from churned users

Just as you can learn from retained users, you can also learn from users who churned early—those who never reached their “aha moment” at all. These are people who didn’t find your product useful, even though they went through the same user experience as the folks that stuck around. Churn is unfortunate, but it’s also an opportunity to learn what went wrong.

Users churn either because they weren't a good fit for the product or because some friction in the experience kept them from finding value. If it's the latter, this is your opportunity to target and eliminate the friction so that more of those churned users start sticking around.

While users who have left aren’t as likely to agree to a call, many will respond to a quick exit survey. Catch them just before they leave your site and use an exit survey to ask a few targeted questions about why the aha moment didn’t land for them. Their feedback can be invaluable in refining your onboarding process.

4. Look for patterns and value indicators

Now that you've gathered both quantitative and qualitative data, it’s time to look for recurring patterns. Start by identifying which behaviors correlate with high retention. Are there specific actions users take during onboarding? Do they engage with a certain feature early on? By pinpointing what successful users have in common, you can make informed adjustments to the onboarding flow.

5. Conduct A/B Testing to validate hypotheses

Once you’ve identified potential aha moments, it’s time to test. Set up A/B tests to try different onboarding flows or feature highlights. For example, you might guide one group of users to explore Feature A and another to Feature B. Analyze which group demonstrates stronger engagement or higher retention.

The goal is to create an onboarding experience that leads more users to their aha moment faster. Remember to test iteratively—each round of testing provides new insights that you can use to refine further.

6. Refine and Repeat

Discovery is a journey, not a one-time event. Use the data and feedback from your tests to make small, calculated adjustments. Over time, these incremental changes will help you refine your onboarding flows to drive more users to that delightful aha moment, setting them—and your product—up for long-term success.

How to personalize your user's journey to “aha!“

Knowing which actions or events in your product trigger aha moments allows you to create more tailored onboarding experiences. You’re no longer limited to blindly optimizing one experience for the entirety of your user base. Instead, you can create a personalized journey based on different types of users—whether they're marketers, engineers, or CEOs—or on subject matter expertise.

For example, Duolingo removes the friction of learning a new language by incorporating elements of personalization into its onboarding UX sequence. The app directs new users through personalized onboarding funnels that are tailored to different levels of experience.

Folks who are brand new to a language need a different approach from those who are a bit more proficient. By creating two separate onboarding experiences, Duolingo is appealing to 2x the user base.

So, how can you personalize your users' journey to aha? Here's how to begin:

Segment your new users

Create two or three buyer profiles and slightly tweak your onboarding for each type of user. You can group your users in one of two ways:

• Programmatically: Use a tool like Clearbit to enrich your leads so that you can group prospects based on demographic, job title, company size, or industry.
• Self-selection: Allow users to choose how to take advantage of your product for themselves, as seen in the Duolingo example above. Appcues, for instance, allows you to incorporate branching logic for a choose-your-own-adventure style of onboarding.

For each category of user, you can create a separate, focused path to aha. Take a look at how API suite Twilio accomplishes this personalization through self-selection.

Users classify themselves as either developers or non-developers with the very first question, with each role getting a very different user onboarding experience.

Because developers range in job title and expertise, Twilio wouldn't benefit from enriching their leads programmatically. Instead, with just a few questions, Twilio lets users customize their user experience through a simple goal-based onboarding menu. This way, Twilio guides users through their specific use case to a personalized aha moment on their huge and versatile platform.

Start with user preferences

If the value in your app lies in your recommendation algorithm, you can hyper-personalize the first-time experience by asking users to set up preferences right off the bat. You’ll want to make sure that:

1. Your recommendations are tied to the core value of your app (think: Netflix, Spotify, Pinterest, etc.)
2. Preferences are as painless to select as possible

Asking users to fill out long forms before diving in creates friction, increasing the probability that a user will get scared off by step one. But a few brief, well-timed questions can get your user to understand your app’s core value sooner and create a stickier product experience in the long run.

Take a look at how Pinterest accomplishes this:

Pinterest has learned that their user's experience improves the more insights they have into the user's specific interests. That's why they ask for 5 of these from the get-go so that users can have a tailored experience during their first-time walkthrough.

How to get users to aha faster

Signup forms, multiple tabs, installs, tutorial videos—the more work you make a user put in before they hit their “aha,” the less likely it is that they’ll stick around for it. If you can get users to their aha moment before requiring them to enter credit card info, agree to Terms of Service, or even log in—do it! That moment of activation will work in your favor—don’t gate your aha moment if you don’t have to.

Take a look at how Airbnb gives you access to all their listings before asking you for any information.

Airbnb demands a lot of information from users upon signup. So instead of forcing people through the friction of account creation at the start, they let users explore what their product has to offer. Airbnb only asks for their information after users have that aha moment—wanting to book or list a rental.

Aha-first onboarding like Airbnb ensures that users start with the aha moment rather than needing to find it on their own. It's also a great way to qualify your leads and guarantee a good customer fit.

Here are three ways you can shorten users’ time to value (TTV) and drive them to their aha moment faster.

Tooltips

Most SaaS products become more valuable the more you use them, so it can be tempting to throw all of your features at new users from the start. But people don't need to experience your entire product at once—they just need to be guided through the behaviors that lead to an aha moment.

Use tooltips to point users where you want them to go, leading them directly to your aha moment with a step-by-step breakdown of what to do. Instead of telling users what to do via a boring guide or video, tooltips show users exactly how to get to their goals. When new users don’t have to figure things out on their own, they’re more likely to reach “aha.”

Take a look at how Canva, a freemium graphic design platform, directs first-time users to their aha moment—creating their first design—via tooltips (designed in Appcues!). These tooltips break down Canva’s product into four simple steps, highlighting each of those actions:

1. Choose a template
2. Editing
3. Add your own photos and videos
4. Publishing

New users can interact with their chosen template, add a personal touch (their own photos), and literally see Canva’s value prop in the form of a unique custom design.

Hotspots

Is your product’s UI busy? Are new users not completing their onboarding? With hotspots, those aren’t concerns because you show users exactly where they need to pay attention. Hotspots encourage users to look at a certain UI element or text block. They can gently nudge users to take the action you want them to, taking them straight to “aha.”‍

GoToWebinar added hotspots to the user onboarding experience to guide users through the sequence of actions necessary to reach their aha moment—scheduling a webinar.

These hotspots drew users’ attention to key elements on the page, reducing friction and confusion in the onboarding process.

And it works—77% of users who viewed this walkthrough scheduled a webinar.

Slideouts

Slideouts grab users’ attention and shows users something they otherwise might not have found on their own. They can also prompt users to take a specific action, directing them to a potentially disguised aha moment.‍

Writer is an AI-powered writing assistant that helps businesses keep their content clear, concise, and on-brand. While Writer has a document editor, it knows that writing happens everywhere—and that’s why they encourage new users to download their Chrome extension as well.

To accomplish this, Writer uses a slideout made with Appcues to prompt users to install this extension to get the most out of their trial.

After installing this extension, users are more likely to use Writer because they can use the tool anywhere, not just on Writer’s website. This increases its potential value and gets users to their aha moment when they realize how often Writer can provide suggestions and how useful those suggestions are.

Without this slideout, new users might not know that Writer even has an extension, thereby not understanding its full value.

Slideouts help bring your aha moment front and center by making it more accessible.

3 excellent aha moment examples

Successful companies get users to their aha moment quickly, demonstrating immediate value. Let’s look at some examples of aha moments from companies you might already know.

TikTok

Aha moment: Finding highly relevant videos.

‍TikTok is a short-form, video-sharing app and one of the fastest-growing apps in the world. TikTok’s aha moment happens when users stumble upon videos that they really enjoy and pertain to their unique interests. But new users have to stick around long enough to get a highly personalized feed—and that’s why TikTok prioritizes showing users how to get there in their tutorial.

TikTok’s onboarding is fast: users choose a few interests and then learn to swipe up to skip videos. Finally, TikTok tells users that the more they scroll, the better their feed will get—and then cuts users loose to explore on their own.

Loom

Aha moment: Share a video

‍Loom helps users collaborate and quickly share their thoughts with their coworkers through video messages. Loom’s aha moment occurs when a new user collaborates with a teammate by creating and sharing their first Loom video.

Loom accelerates the time to value by shortening the amount of time necessary for a new user to onboard before creating a video. Its targeted onboarding automatically links new users to their team’s workspace (if it exists), granting instant access to the rest of their team’s existing videos.

Loom puts the “Team” section above a user’s personal library, encouraging users to invite others or share videos with the team. It also features a “Show me how” button, so curious users can learn how to share a video.

When a new user creates and shares their first Loom video, they realize the benefits of video communication over sending an email or Slack message—leading to Loom’s aha moment.

Hootsuite

Aha moment: Schedule or post from a linked social media account‍

Hootsuite, a social media management tool, centers its aha moment around making social media posting easier. That’s why Hootsuite guides new users through the process of linking their social media accounts ASAP.

Once connected, new users can learn how to manage their social media content and schedule posts ahead of time—one of Hootsuite’s main value props.

This onboarding process is designed to drive new users to Hootsuite’s aha moment—where users realize how much easier social media management is with Hootsuite than without it.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Designing for Aha Moments

Crafting those magical aha moments can be tricky. Here are some common pitfalls to steer clear of:

• Overcomplicating onboarding: Keep it simple. A long or complicated onboarding process can overwhelm new users. Focus on guiding them to that first “aha!” as efficiently as possible.
• Ignoring user feedback: Failing to gather and act on user feedback can mean missing out on valuable opportunities for improvement. Make it a regular practice to listen, learn, and adapt.
• Failing to personalize the experience: Different user personas have different needs. Use data to create tailored onboarding experiences that resonate with specific types of users.
• Missing the emotional connection: People remember how you made them feel. Ensure your onboarding includes moments that delight and emotionally engage your users, making them more likely to stick around.

Resources to master the aha moment

As you're beginning to create new onboarding flows and design experiments, you'll need to stay up-to-date with the best insights and strategies around aha moments.

At Appcues, we've learned a lot about finding the aha moment from working with companies in a wide range of industries. We've also researched, interviewed business leaders and users, and read a ton of resources so we can keep learning, too.

We've compiled some of our top resources to help you identify and optimize your product’s aha moment below:

• The definitive guide to improving activation
  This guide is a deep dive into how you can quantitatively find the first, most important moment of value for your users.
• How to shorten time to value with better onboarding
  Reducing your product’s time to value = reducing time to the aha moment. This article explains why TTV is such an important metric and how to shrink time to value.
• How to design goal-oriented user onboarding in 4 steps
  Pantelis Korovilas of Turo and Hopper explains why user onboarding is a strategy to help users discover your app’s core value faster and more effectively. He shares 4 ways to orient your onboarding around key actions by focusing on goals, not features.
• We categorized over 500 user onboarding experiences into 8 UI/UX patterns
  Seriously, we spend a LOT of time looking at other folks’ onboarding. We identified 8 patterns that can help you steer users toward their aha moment.

Getting to your product’s aha moment with Appcues

You want new users to say “aha!” and not “hmm...” or “grrr.” Achieving that means crafting an exceptional user experience (UX) from the very first interaction. The journey to an aha moment isn't just about showing off your product's functionality—it's about understanding user cognition and how they perceive value during onboarding. This requires experimentation, analysis, and iteration, focusing on the problem-solving elements that matter most to your users.

That’s where Appcues comes in—we get new users to their aha moment faster by strengthening onboarding and guiding them through the behaviors that successful customers have already found valuable and lead to customer retention. And we help you build and publish in-app messaging flows sans coding, saving your developers time that can be better spent on other aspects of the product.

Post-install, your marketers, CSMs, and product managers can use Appcues to create engaging experiences like modal windows, tooltips, hotspots, checklists, slideouts, and NPS surveys. These can be tailored to different user segments, helping you cater to various cognitive styles and preferences and making your product’s value crystal clear.

Give us a try—we’d love to hear about your own Appcues aha moment!

Aim for long-term engagement and retention

Getting users to that first aha moment is a fantastic start, but onboarding is only the beginning. The key to growth is building up a solid customer base full of long-term users. To do so, you have to think about user retention and product adoption at every stage of the customer lifecycle.

Long-term success doesn’t just happen at the first aha moment—it’s a continuous process. By creating multiple aha moments that highlight different aspects of your product's functionality, you keep users engaged and excited about what comes next. The goal is to maintain that initial spark of cognitive engagement and turn it into lasting loyalty, inspiring more aha moments and helping users become more successful over time.FAQs

What is an aha moment?

An aha moment is a point in the user journey where a person first discovers the value of a product and understands why they need it. It's like a lightbulb turning on—a moment of clarity and excitement when users realize, “Wow, this solves my problem!” In the context of digital products, it’s a crucial milestone that helps convert a new user into an engaged, loyal one.

How do you identify an aha moment in product development?

Identifying an aha moment in product development involves a mix of data analysis, user feedback, and experimentation. Start by examining user behavior data to spot patterns that correlate with retention. Look for key actions or features that engaged users frequently interact with. Combine this data with direct feedback from users—both those who stick around and those who churn—to gain a deeper understanding of what drives that moment of realization. Finally, validate your findings through A/B testing different onboarding experiences to pinpoint the exact triggers that lead to aha moments.

What is a synonym for aha moment?

A synonym for an aha moment could be a eureka moment or a moment of discovery. Both terms capture that feeling of sudden realization or insight where something clicks into place for a user. It’s that spark that can turn curiosity into commitment.