RAGHUNATHAN G

Enhanced User Onboarding by 20%
with a Simplified Registration Flow

Timeline

12 months (April 2024 - March 2025)

Role

As a Staff UX Designer, I led UX strategy, research, task flow design, wireframing, visual design, and usability testing for all screens.

Overview

Juniper network serves a diverse set of users — customers, partners, researchers, and guest users. Each user group requires specific access levels, compliance checks, and approvals before they can interact with our support applications. However, the existing user registration experience was outdated, cumbersome, and inconsistent with industry standards. It not only frustrated users but also resulted in a heavy dependency on customer support teams to complete registrations.


Our goal was clear: Reduce the user registration (onboarding) related customer support cases to less than 20% (from current 40%) by reimagining the registration journey to make it simple, compliant, scalable, and personalised.

The Problems

icon

Low task completion rate (60%)

40% of users needed customer support intervention to complete registration.

icon

No chat support during registration

Users could only access help after being fully registered. leading to more admin cases

icon

User Type (Persona) Selection.

Users were not able to identify (with given information) which user type to select to complete the registration process. (leads to creation of different profile and more admin cases)

icon

Complex guest sign-in flow

5 steps with redundant details and no clear feedback.Email validation > Enter organisation details (9 fields) > Select User Type > Read and approve Encryption > Confirmation

icon

Compliance issue

Encryption approval shown to all users, even guests, though it was relevant only for partners. lead to confusion and more time complete the task

icon

Public mail and group mail address

Users got (Public mail and group mail address ) related error messages later in the user registration process and were not allowed to change the mail address and consequently had to create new account with new email id. Which lead to lots of duplicate record creation.

icon

Inefficient turnaround time

More than an hour to create a base account (vs. industry benchmark of < 7 minutes). Delays in compliance checks were not communicated.

icon

Guest user limitations

Guest users couldn’t upgrade to customer/partner/supplier or other profiles post registration. Had to create another account with new email id leading to duplicate accounts

icon

Brand inconsistency

Registration flow did not reflect Juniper's latest branding.

Solution

Simplified the current user registration design for both Guest and Non Guest users by removing the above mentioned pain points based on competitive
Analysis which lead to below results:-

  1. 2-Step Registration → Quick entry, persona-driven expansion.

  2. Organised the registration process in three steps : Select User Type, Enter organisation detail and Confirmation and used progress bar keep the users informed about the
    progress and motivate them to complete the task.

  3. Simplified Sign-up Screen → Inspired by competitors, but customised to Juniper’s brand.

  4. Persona-Based Dynamic Forms → Fewer fields, more relevance. Personalised path to complete registration.

  5. Third-Party Validation Services → Auto-populated company data, address validation, embargo-country filtering.

  6. Seamless Profile Upgrade → Guests can become partners/customers anytime.

  7. Improved Communication → Clear, persona-based emails with timelines.

  8. Live Support Integration → Chat option available during registration.

Design Approach

I did the stakeholder interview to find out about, users, business goal and success metrics asked the below questions

Why does this product exist?

To enable customers, partners, researchers, and guest users to securely access Juniper’s support ecosystem — including device monitoring dashboards, reports, and tools.

It serves as the gateway for user authentication, compliance validation, and account creation, ensuring that every user type gains appropriate access while meeting legal and operational requirements..

By redesigning the registration experience, the goal was to create a frictionless, compliant, and brand-aligned onboarding flow that supports both user efficiency and business scalability.

Who are the users (Customers)?

  • Customers – or potential device owners who need access to dashboards, reports, and support tools
  • Partners – Channel resellers or service providers who require compliance verification and contractual approvals.
  • Guest Users – New or temporary users seeking limited access, with the flexibility to upgrade later.

What value will be delivered to both of them?

User Value:

  • Reduced registration time from 30 minutes to under 7 minutes.
  • Intuitive, persona-based onboarding that’s faster and easier to complete.
  • Improved transparency and guidance throughout the process.
  • Confidence through clear communication and brand consistency.

What value will be delivered to both of them?

Business Value:

  • 20% increase in onboarding completion directly impacts user acquisition and engagement.
  • Lower support overhead and faster onboarding throughput.
  • Compliance process aligned with corporate and legal standards.
  • A scalable onboarding framework adaptable to new personas or geographies.

How are we going to measure the success? UX and business metrics?

Metrics:

  • Task completion rate: from 60% → 80%(By conducting usability testing)
  • Average turnaround time: from 30 min → < 7 min.(By conducting usability testing)
  • Support tickets: reduced by −20% related to onboarding. (By getting these numbers from customer support team via salesforce platform.)

What is realistically possible to achieve given time, technology, and resource constraints?

Given constraints around legacy systems, compliance policies, and engineering bandwidth, the redesign focused on achievable and high-impact improvements:

  1. Implemented a 2-step modular registration flow instead of a complete system overhaul
  2. Integrated third-party validation services using existing vendor contracts.
  3. Deferred full live chat automation to a later release, starting with guided help prompts.
  4. Focused on core personas (Guests, Customers, Partners, Cloud Marketplace Users) rather than niche roles.
  5. Adopted existing brand components from Juniper’s design system for faster delivery.

Research activities

Performed the below mentioned research activities to discover the above mentioned pain points of current user registration process

  1. Competitive Benchmarking: We studied registration flows of leading tech firms (Cisco, Palo Alto, IBM, and SaaS leaders like Microsoft). Their success lay in streamlined 2-step flows, persona-driven journeys, and early-stage access.
  2. User Journey Mapping: Identified the above listed pain point through user interview and customer journey mapping.
  3. Support Ticket Analysis: 40% of tickets during onboarding were related to users not understanding what information was required or why delays occurred.
  4. User Interviews: Customers wanted quick access to product documentation; partners needed compliance validation but wanted clear timelines; researchers required light-touch registration with upgrade options.

Did the secondary research and collected the queries raised by different type of users from the Customer Care team, Customers account managers. Also did the UX audit and Task analysis of the current User Reg design to identify the usability issues

Got insights from above research and understood how different users performed registration process and what queries they raise, what information they look for, what are their pain points what workaround they are doing to overcome these pain points.

Customer Journey map

Collaborated with User research team to get details about how users are performing their task now and what pain points they are facing along with what workaround they are doing to fix the pain points.

User research team spoke to different stakeholders involved in the user registration process and created the customer journey map of the entire user registration business process.

User research team conducted contextual enquiry with the few guest users and customers to understand their current journey and mapped it against the different stages of the user registration process. As a result of which they were able to identify (guest and customers) pain points across the user journey.

juniper-img-1

User type: Guest Users

Goals

As a guest users I need to create an account with Juniper to explore juniper products and services so that I can decide which companies products or services I should buy for my companies infrastructure.

User type: Customer

Goals

Whenever I have an issues with Juniper product and services I should be able to create a case using Juniper support portal so that I can get quick resolution and fix the issue. In order to create a case I need to create an account with Juniper through user registration application.

Key Tasks Performed by Users

  1. Sign up.
  2. Receive the activation mail.
  3. Click on activation link in the mail to complete the sign up process and land on login page, entered the user name and password provided by users in sign up page.
  4. On successful validation users land on persona selection page, find links to explore as guest users and select any persona if the users want to upgrade from guest users to
    1. Customers 2. Suppliers 3. Marketplace providers 4. Cloud users 5. Eval users 6. Lab users.
  5. Enter Persona specific credentials to upgrade and register and specific persona post persona selection.
  6. Enter organisation details
  7. Agree terms and condition and submit the registration form and get the confirmation mail.
  8. Wait for confirmation mail if any compliance is pending from users’ side or any delay from compliance team. User will get any mail related to compliance related queries if any.

Paint points for guest users

  1. There is no separate path for guest users, Need to go through all steps as required by customer user type.
  2. Guest users can't upgrade to other profile post registration.

Paint points for customers

  1. Selecting user type was a pain point as it wasn't easy to understand
  2. Public mail and group mail address related error messages were communicated later in the flow
  3. No customer support (Chat Support) was available for users
  4. Turnaround time (Efficiency) for customer user account creation was more than 1 hour.
  5. Moreover delay in compliance check was not communicated to customers immediately.
  6. Interface Design was not as per the latest Juniper branding.

User Flow

Design Solution

  • 2-Step Registration: Quick entry, persona-driven expansion
  • Progress Indicators: Select User Type → Enter details → Confirmation
  • Simplified Sign-up: Inspired by competitors, customised to Juniper's brand
  • Persona-Based Dynamic Forms: Fewer fields, more relevance
  • Third-Party Validation: Auto-populated company data, address validation
  • Seamless Profile Upgrade: Auto-populated company data, address validation
  • Improved Communication: Clear, persona-based emails with timelines
  • Live Support Integration:Chat option available during registration

Wireframe and Visual Design

Based on the competitive analysis of top 6 networking companies user registration process broke down the Juniper user registration process in 2 steps format. Guest User and Non Guest users

Compliance issue:
By showing the encryption details only to partner user and not showing to other user type, removing unwanted step from other user type task flow, leading to quicker task completion. Otherwise every users has to read through this lengthy technical content and accept the same which was causing in delay in task completion.

Compliance process became transparent, reducing partner escalations.

Before

Complex 5-step flow

signup-1

No chat support during registration
Users could only access help after being fully registered.

Complex guest sign-in flow
5 steps with redundant details and no clear feedback.
Email validation > Enter organisation details (9 fields) > Select User Type > Read and approve Encryption > Confirmation

Brand inconsistency
Registration flow did not reflect Juniper's latest branding.

After

Simplified 2-step flow

User-Account-Creation

Chat support available during registration
Users could now access help during registration

Now Guest users had to go through only 2 steps
Sign up form > Email activation

Brand inconsistency
Redesigned screens to align with Juniper’s latest branding — clean UI, consistent typography, and trust markers

For All Guest Users
In the first step Allowing all user types to first register as Guest users so that, Guest users (Who are 60% of the users) can quickly finish the task by providing only the key information as required. Guest users journey ends here.
post which they will receive activation mail.

Public mail and group mail address
Public mail and group mail address related error messages were shown when email id was entered so that users can take informed decision whether to continue with group email or not.

Before

Complex 5-step flow

persona-before

Difficulty in User Type (Persona) Selection.

Guest user limitations
Guest users couldn’t upgrade to customer/partner/supplier or other profiles post registration.

After

Simplified 2-step flow

User-Account-Creation

Progress Bar

Will keep users informed about the current step and how much more steps are there to complete. Also it will motivate the users to complete the task.

User Type (Persona) Selection.

All guest users who want to upgrade as customer/Partner/cloud marketplace/Eval users or lab users can do so by selecting the appropriate user type after reading the respective description.

Impact & Results

arrow-icon

60% → 80%

Task Completion Rate

arrow-icon

30min → 7min

Average Turnaround Time

arrow-icon

-20%

Support Tickets Reduced

Usability Testing Results

Task completion rate of creating an account without any support increased from 60% to 80%.

Base users completed the task within ~2 min (previously ~30 min), and non-guest users completed within ~10 min.

Customer support tickets related to registration dropped by 20%, reducing operational overhead.