Amazon FTUE
An onboarding experience designed to help new users navigate Amazon's Manga Store
Product Designer — Sebastien Chery
Problem
How can we introduce new users to Amazon's Manga Store features effciently?
Research showed first-time users dropped off before reaching free samples and discounts. This hurt conversions and kept the Manga store from standing out in a crowded market.
Solution
A six-card onboarding flow that introduces discovery and reading features, then rewards engaged users with free content and discounts. This builds interest before asking for commitment and turns curious browsers into confident buyers.
Team
Collaborated across engineering, Japanese stakeholders, and product managers to deliver an end-to-end solution.
Role — Led UX strategy from start to finish, and facilitated cross-functional collaboration.
Deliverable — FTUE widget ready for A/B testing.
Deliverable — FTUE widget ready for A/B testing.
Design Process
Stakeholder Alignment — I began with an alignment session with stakeholders, translators, and marketers to understand business goals, technical constraints, and requirements.
User Research — I reviewed user feedback from an Amazon Japan storefront study, observed nine first-time user sessions, and distilled findings to support my project goals.
Journey Map — I used the research findings to create a journey map showing user states and drop-off risks across onboarding stages. It helped stakeholders assess how the card sequence could impact conversion and engagement. Shown below:
User Flow / Wireframe — Using the journey map, I created a user flow that built early engagement before introducing conversion drivers, increasing the likelihood of action at the end.
Engineering Handoff — I prepared the custom components in Figma Dev Mode using Auto Layout, consistent 4px spacing, and clear annotations aligned with Amazon’s design guidelines.
Results
Research informed the use of asynchronous loading for fast, previewable manga samples. Iterative wireframes guided the integration of Amazon’s carousel components, swipe for mobile, and arrows for desktop. The widget was delivered on schedule, built for scale, and ready for A/B testing.
Key Challenge
Stakeholders were worried users would drop off before seeing incentives at the end of the flow. I created the journey map to visualize the drop-off risk and facilitate the decision about accepting some early abandonment in exchange for more engaged users who completed the flow. The strategy was about using the incentive budget efficiently by focusing on the users most likely to convert.
This challenge taught me the importance of making trade-offs explicit with my team rather than avoiding difficult conversations.