Examples

Scenario: Researching User Onboarding Friction

You're a product manager at a B2B SaaS company. Trial-to-paid conversion is 8% (industry benchmark is 15-25%). You suspect onboarding is the bottleneck but need evidence before investing in a redesign.

Phase 1: Discover

/research:discover user onboarding friction

Casts a wide net across the problem space. Searches for industry research on SaaS onboarding, analyzes competitor onboarding flows, reviews user forum complaints, and maps stakeholder perspectives.

Sample output snippet:

Key theme: Users who don't reach the "aha moment" within 3 sessions churn at 4x the rate. Competitor analysis shows top performers use guided checklists (Notion, Linear) or interactive tutorials (Figma, Canva). Surprise finding: Support tickets reveal users don't understand the difference between "workspaces" and "projects" — a naming problem, not a feature problem.

Phase 2: Define

/research:define user onboarding friction

Synthesizes findings into a focused problem statement and research plan.

Sample output snippet:

Problem Statement: New trial users cannot discover the product's core value within their first session because the onboarding flow assumes domain knowledge they don't have, resulting in 62% abandonment before completing setup. HMW Questions:

1. How might we get users to their first meaningful outcome in under 5 minutes?
2. How might we reduce the cognitive load of initial setup without removing necessary configuration?
3. How might we personalize onboarding based on the user's role and goals?

Phase 3: Design

/research:design user onboarding friction

Generates multiple solution concepts and evaluates them.

Sample output snippet:

Concept A: Role-based onboarding wizard — Ask 3 questions at signup, tailor the first experience. Feasibility: High. Impact: High. Concept B: Interactive product tour — Guided walkthrough of key features with sample data. Feasibility: Medium. Impact: Medium. Concept C: Template-first onboarding (Recommended) — Start users with a pre-built template matching their use case. Skip empty states entirely. Feasibility: High. Impact: Very High.

Phase 4: Deliver

/research:deliver user onboarding friction

Validates the top recommendation with evidence and produces actionable output.

Sample output snippet:

Recommendation: Template-first onboarding. Evidence: Notion's template gallery increased activation by 40%. Our data shows users who import data in session 1 convert at 3x the rate. Action items:

1. Create 5 templates for top use cases (by product team, 2 weeks)
2. Redesign signup flow to select template before workspace setup (by engineering, 1 sprint)
3. Add "time to first value" metric to analytics dashboard (by data team, 3 days)

What You End Up With

.metapowers/research/user-onboarding-friction/
  01-discover.md    ← Industry research, competitor analysis, user insights
  02-define.md      ← Problem statement, HMW questions, success criteria
  03-design.md      ← 3 solution concepts with evaluation matrix
  04-deliver.md     ← Validated recommendation with action items

A research-backed recommendation with specific action items — ready to hand off to product and engineering.