Teardown Tuesday: Does Target’s onboarding hit the bullseye?

This week I examine Target’s mobile app onboarding to see what opens the register and what should stay on the shelf.

Overview

In 2020, Target launched its grocery pickup service, which spearheaded a long overdue pivot into a technology-forward strategy. Since then, the company has reaped enormous benefits from its pickup service and continues its transformation from a brick-and-mortar retailer into a digital powerhouse to give Amazon a run for its money.

Target’s changes to their business have completely changed the way my family shops, most of which is now done by myself in the app today. I set aside my bias for this audit of Target’s onboarding, to look at the app with fresh eyes from download through sign-up, ending before the shopping experience begins.

For a more polished presentation, view the audit in figma

A three to four second load time and seamless transition earns the app initialization an A.

It doesn’t look pretty but the systems thinker in me understands the importance of this decision. It needs to be polished up and some fields should be removed but it’s a passable approach for a notoriously difficult screen.

There may be a world where this screen doesn’t appear in the sign up flow, but given it’s importance I understand why it makes such an early appearance.

Notification permissions should almost always come after a transaction in an app like Target’s.

Tool tips are product’s pop up window. This one blocks progress, that’s a no for me dog.

A pretty standard approach to search, executed well, aside from the tool tip of course.

I attempted to use this feature and give it a fair shot, it’s just too clunky and doesn’t provide enough value.

The homepage showcases how a past strength can become a weakness. This page is overburdened with ads that fit neatly into Target’s wheelhouse as a brick and mortar/offline retailer but have no place in an app.

Another case of ad overload weighs this page down.

In the most obvious case of an offline strategy attempting to live online, we have a weekly circular one can page through but can’t buy anything from.

I’m guessing the grocery group may be run by a different team, the logic here is more simple than some other pages.

As an outsider this appears like a turf war for the name “Essentials” that ended in much bloodshed.

Aside from my previous comment about merging create account and sign/in, this page keeps focused and keeps it simple.

Another straight forward approach for a problem that’s been solved 1,000 times over. No need to reinvent the cart wheel.

Another straight-forward approach for a straight-forward problem.

Conclusion

Target ends up with a solid C for their onboarding, leaving some room for improvement. As always, the case with Target, the brand and visual approach is impeccable. However, the experience suffers from too much marketing and flawed decisions intended to assist the user but end up blocking them instead. The flows and content strategy leave room for improvement, and leaning on a more programmatic approach could help these flows get users into the app more quickly. Clearly, these challenges haven’t held Target back thus far, as their digital transformation is well underway. But with some tweaking and a little love, this app could continue to grow at a meteoric pace.

Illustration/Composite by David Kelly using Midjourney & Photoshop
Screenshots from app version 2023.36.0

David Kelly is a Lead Product Designer helping startups and other companies grow. To see more of David’s work, visit dksbook.com