Productboard Spark
Designing the first-time user experience for Productboard's AI-first product, from marketing site to a meaningful output in seconds
Productboard·October 2025
On Productboard's growth team, I led onboarding design for Spark, an AI-first experience for product managers. The work spanned the full first-time user journey: from the marketing website through sign-up, use-case selection, and mapping those choices to predefined jobs and prompts, with the goal of getting new users to a useful output in seconds.
- Task
- Lead first-time user experience and onboarding for Productboard Spark
- Strategy
- Growth, activation, time-to-value
- Design
- UX/UI design, journey mapping, prototyping
- Role
- Leading onboarding design on the growth team
Challenge
Prove value before patience runs out
Spark introduces a new way for PMs to work with AI inside Productboard. For trialists arriving from marketing, the product has to deliver on that promise immediately, not after setup, configuration, or learning curves.
The growth challenge was connecting what users saw on the website to what they experienced after sign-up. Every step between landing page and first output had to reduce friction, not add it.
- Users needed a clear path from sign-up to first meaningful AI output
- Use-case selection had to feel relevant, not like a generic survey
- Predefined jobs and prompts had to match real PM workflows out of the box
Marketing site: predefined prompts aligned to real PM workflows
Leading onboarding on the growth team
I joined the growth squad as the design lead for onboarding and activation. Spark was a new bet for Productboard, so the FTUE wasn't a polish pass on an existing flow. It was the product's first impression.
That meant working closely with product, engineering, and growth on the full journey: what we promise on the marketing site, what happens at sign-up, and how quickly someone understands what Spark can do for them.
The end-to-end journey
I mapped and designed the experience as one continuous path rather than isolated screens. The narrative we optimised for was simple: arrive with intent, tell us how you work, land in the right starting point, get an output fast.
- Marketing website: align messaging with what users experience after sign-up
- Sign-up: keep momentum from the landing page into the product
- Use-case selection: capture why someone is here without heavy form friction
- Job and prompt mapping: route users into predefined starting points that match their use case
- First output: deliver a useful result in seconds, not minutes
From use cases to jobs and prompts
A core part of the design was translating self-reported use cases into concrete in-product starting points. We built a library of predefined jobs and prompts aligned to how PMs actually work: prioritisation, discovery, roadmap planning, stakeholder updates, and more.
Instead of dropping users into a blank canvas, the FTUE matched their selection to a ready-made prompt structure. That reduced the cognitive load of “what do I ask the AI?” and shortened the path to a first result worth sharing.
Seconds to output
The north star for the flow was time-to-value. Every screen was evaluated against whether it helped or hurt the goal of getting users to a meaningful output quickly.
Where we could infer intent from a use case, we did. Where we needed input, we kept it lightweight. The aim was for users to feel the product working for them on the first session, not after a tutorial or an empty-state tour.
I mapped the full FTUE from marketing entry points through sign-up, onboarding, and first session. That gave the squad a shared view of handoffs, drop-off risks, and where messaging and UI needed to stay aligned.
A welcoming home, not an empty prompt
After onboarding, users land on a home experience designed to feel inviting and actionable. The goal was to avoid the cold start of an empty input field and instead surface clear starting points the moment someone arrives.
The home page greets users by name, keeps the chat input available, and puts Jobs, Prompts, and Videos one tap away. Jobs offer guided workflows with outcomes and time estimates. Prompts give reusable starting points for common PM tasks. Videos help teams learn the interface without leaving the page.
Home overview: chat input plus Jobs, Prompts, and Videos in one place
Outcomes
Impact
End-to-end FTUE ownership
Led onboarding design across the full journey, from marketing alignment through sign-up, use-case selection, prompt routing, and first output.
Use-case-driven activation
Mapped user-reported use cases to predefined jobs and prompts so new users could reach a meaningful AI output in seconds instead of starting from scratch.
Growth-team collaboration
Partnered with product, engineering, and growth to ship an activation flow built around time-to-value for Spark trialists.