ACTIVATION / GORGIAS • 2024
Redesigning Help Center onboarding
This project highlights data-informed design decisions through user testing, and building for various user segments.
ROLE
Product Designer
TIMELINE
Dec 2023 - Feb 2024
COLLABORATORS
Lenaig L., Product Manager
2 Engineers
CONTEXT
While Gorgias' Help Center channel expanded in features and capabilities over the years, its legacy onboarding experience remained unchanged.
A low (36%) adoption rate and drop-off right after creation signaled that the single-step flow was failing to guide merchants through setup or give them any reason to see it through.
THE PROBLEM
Once created, merchants are dropped into a massive list of settings, a blank article list, and no sense of what to do next.
Merchants subscribed to the Automation add-on don't know how to leverage it's feature to maximize ticket deflection.
Order Management and Flows can be embedded into the Help Center to deliver instant answers without human intervention.
THE SCOPE
We initially wanted to tackle both onboarding and content creation because they're so intertwined in driving adoption.
We recognized scope bloat and narrowed the scope into phased iterations so we could ship a focused ‘launch‑ready’ experience that had faster, lower delivery risk.
Phase 1: Essential setup
Get merchants almost live with minimal effort. The goal is to be ready to flip the switch, not to be perfect.
Later: Content expansion
Mature the knowledge base over time—add core FAQs, address top contact drivers, organize categories, and iterate continuously to make self-service truly effective.
THE SOLUTION: PHASE 1
A 3-step onboarding wizard that provides fast time-to-value
We recognized scope bloat and narrowed the scope into phased projects so we could ship a focused ‘launch‑ready’ experience faster, lower delivery risk.
Core configuration
Basic setup essentials like subdomain and store connection, prefilled whenever possible to reduce friction.
Brand alignment
Logo, color scheme, and typography setup ensures the Help Center reflects merchant brand identity — critical for building core customer trust.
Fast content creation (optional)
Editable templates for the most-searched topics let merchants populate their Help Center fast (later replaced with AI articles).
Unlock paid features
Merchants with a paid add-on see an additional step to turn on automation features, ensuring they leverage what they're paying for and build awareness.
Nudge to publish
After setup, a contextual modal prompts merchants to either add more articles (create or import) or go live, depending on their current state.
RESULTS & IMPACT
This feature was released to all customers in February 2024.
15% increase
in Help Center adoption
5% increase
in merchants with >1 article
While constrained to the existing wizard pattern, I built on top of it and introduced a new preview component, which scaled to other areas of the product, such as AI Agent onboarding.
POST-RELEASE
AI-generated articles
Following the release of an AI article library, generic templates were replaced with AI articles in onboarding.
New article empty state
I added a small-effort improvement to bring the empty state up-to-date with the rest of the product.
LEARNINGS
Use data as a signal, not the solution
I treated data around setting usage as one source that validated the core needs for Help Center setup that we could then scale back when defining the scope, rather than using it as the deciding factor for direction.
Collaborate early and often
Working with engineers early surfaced edge cases when mapping out different user segments and helped flag technical constraints when connecting with features living outside of the wizard.