Delight is a tempting first metric for onboarding. It photographs well in a deck. It is also, in most B2B products, the wrong thing to optimize first.
What actually predicts retention
Across three onboarding rebuilds, the flows that retained best were the ones that got out of the way fastest — fewer screens, fewer choices, a straight line to the first real task.
Boring, in this sense, means predictable. Users should never wonder what happens if they click next. That predictability is what earns the right to be delightful later, once trust exists.