How Disney+ onboards new users — a UX analysis
A step-by-step walkthrough of the Disney+ onboarding experience of new users on mobile
In August 2019 Walt Disney announced its own streaming service called Disney+.
A free pilot has launched exclusively in The Netherlands and I thought it would be interesting to dive into the onboarding flow for new customers. The streaming service currently offers a small amount of content from their studios (Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, National Geographic, and Walt Disney Pictures) and is ready to enter the streaming service market.
I’m not necessarily interested in the available content they have to offer right now but I was curious to see how they would onboard new customers in a world with the already existing services (Netflix, Apple+, Videoland (NL), Hulu, Amazon Prime Video) and how they differentiate themselves from the rest.
#1 Advertisement
While scrolling on Instagram I stumbled upon the advertisement to get a free exclusive trial until the 12th of November. The main focus of the advertisement is the big five they currently have to offer. On the landing page, you can see they have the same focus but also showcase features like having multiple users, streaming simultaneously with multiple people, offline downloads and a large selection of platforms that are compatible with Disney+.
#2 Sign up flow
Setting up an account was easy and straightforward. You basically have to enter your email and password to create your personal account. They grouped the CTA button with the terms & agreement that almost made me tap on the checkbox to opt-in for marketing emails.
#3 Subscription and payment
After creating the account you get the option to pay monthly (€6,99) or yearly (€69,99 instead of €83,88 based on the monthly price). My calculator tells me that you will save about €13,89 when choosing for the yearly payment. Bit of a missed opportunity there to show the amount you’d save in the yearly option which basically means you get 2 months for free.
The checkbox on top of every payment method asks whether to save this preferred payment method for other companies of The Walt Disney Family of Companies. I don’t know what this exactly means but I also don’t want to know. Do they have my payment details for the next time I’m visiting Disney Land?
Anyway. Big fan of the effortless PayPal One Touch option which allows you to pay directly without entering any details, so I went for that option. The payment is being processed and a subtle Disney themed loader is being shown — nice touch.
#4 Downloading the app
After the payment was processed I was guided to the landing page to download the iOS application in the App Store. All pretty straightforward from there. The application has a pretty good overall rating of ⭐3.6 (915) and is currently #1 in the Entertainment app category.
#5 App onboarding
The landing page on iOS has the same aesthetic as the mobile web but it doesn’t show any available content outside of the repetitive imagery from the big five studios. From here I can log in with the account I just created.
#6 The iOS application
The overall look of the application is pretty clean and offers all the basics (category overview, personal favorites with offline capabilities and multiple profiles) you would expect from a streaming service. By default, I got the Micky Mouse avatar. It would have been fun to be able to pick the avatar myself when entering the application.
The Verge did a proper breakdown of the available titles which you can read here if you are interested.
I think Walt Disney did a pretty good job on their first launch without lacking any important features. I’m guessing that the main reason why people would choose for Disney+ is the (4K) content and it will be a matter of time to see how fast they will be able to expand their catalog to reach a bigger audience.
I hope you enjoyed this breakdown of the onboarding process of the Disney+ streaming service. I’m very curious about how this growing landscape of streaming services will eventually shape how we watch movies and TV shows.
What do you think is the future of streaming services?
