What Sci-Fi Taught Me About Design, Ep. 7: Dropped Mid-Mission with No Briefing
- Alex Dihel
- Jul 18
- 1 min read
In Starship Troopers, the rookies are given weapons, shoved onto a drop ship, and launched into a full-blown alien war.
No real intel.
No map.
Just orders to “do their part.”
That’s what bad onboarding feels like.
The user logs in.
They’re handed a feature.
The system is live.
No context. No orientation. Just action.
And then we wonder why adoption is low.
Good onboarding isn’t just about showing tooltips.
It’s about mission readiness.
It answers: What am I doing? Why does it matter? Where do I start?
Want users to trust your product? Try this:
🪖 Give them a reason to care before asking them to act
🪖 Provide just enough structure to start - not everything at once
🪖 Let them practice before the real work begins
🪖 Show progress, not just completion
Because nobody wants to land in a war zone with no map and a blinking button labeled “Go.” Read this on LinkedIn
