People arrived excited and left confused.
People came to Dreamaker with something they cared about — a goal, a change, a dream. But onboarding asked for goals, categories, and timelines up front, interrogating people before it ever guided them. The brief I set myself: make the first screens calm and supportive, and position the Sidekick as a companion, not a productivity coach.
I tested V1 with 13 real people.
Once I had a working prototype, I recruited and ran sessions with thirteen participants, ages 19 to 62 — teachers, students, designers, healthcare and business professionals, and people in tech. Everything below comes from testing my own onboarding prototype, not the current Dreamaker app.
"It feels more like a guided experience than a typical productivity app."
what they liked
"I would use it right away."
what they liked
"I need to understand the context and purpose of the app."
what they needed
"A progress bar would be good — I didn't know how much was left."
what they needed
→ how I ran it, if you like process
Alongside the onboarding work I built a structured feedback system for the broader app test: I reviewed the MARS quality framework, built a Google Forms survey and a branded Netlify version, and set up response collection and CSV-export workflows so findings were easy to analyze and share.
V2: onboarding as a conversation, not a form.
Testing V1 made one thing clear — onboarding needed to feel like a conversation. V2 added context and intro screens, replaced generic questions with a Sidekick-guided exchange, and introduced a progress bar so people always knew where they stood. The wireframes below are my own redraws — boxes and lines, no client branding.
→ the longer version, if you like process
V1 to V2 across two rounds. The biggest shift was less interrogation and more guidance — letting the Sidekick lead — plus a visible progress bar, the single most-requested change from testers.
"It feels personal, reflective, and human in a way that most productivity apps don't."
From a prototype to a plan for beta.
- →Strong results led to me mapping the full app — Onboarding, Vision, Action, Connection, Profile, Sidekick, and Settings — for beta.
- →The Sidekick-guided conversation and progress model carried into V3, now in progress ahead of beta launch.
- →Biggest lesson: good onboarding is about creating understanding, not just collecting information — and real users catch what designers and founders overlook.
○ Client work under NDA — visuals are my own process artifacts and redrawn wireframes.
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