Dgraph Labs | Diving Into The Dev World 🌎

Dgraph Cloud is the only native GraphQL graph database built for the cloud. The product targets two main user groups: app developers who need flexibility working with GraphQL, and C-suite executives striving for scalability.

Current metrics showed that drop-off rate and time to first value is below industry standards. A strategy that considers true user goals – focusing on outcomes instead of features, is of utmost importance.



Identifying the blocker

Imagine only given one chance to launch a project to test out a tool. You'd probably take a step back and think it through before you act on it.

Through 11 customer calls with users who left their accounts empty, we discovered that developers were saving the 1MB data transfer per day limit to launch their "best project". There's an added burden on the users that the product failed to take into consideration.



Diving into the developer world

As a designer solving a problem in the developer space, competitive analysis helped me understand what workflows, concepts, and interaction paradigms my target audience are already using.

The goal here is not to re-invent the wheel but be purposeful in implementing elements and flows that would benefit our users the most.



Finding the right place to instill confidence

Apart from giving users a series of how-tos, an App Store was implemented to provide a list of "one-click to deploy" sample apps to get the users started. The onboarding redesign resulted in:

• Reduced onboarding drop-off rate by 8%
• Increased free trial to paid conversion rate by 23%
• Increased user retention (eight-week average) by 55%

If I were to only share one thing I've learned

Developers often have somewhat different requirements and expectations compared to business users and everyday consumers. To design a successful developer product, understanding the dev world is crucial. There are no shortcuts.