Enhancing User Experience with React-Joyride: How I made User onboarding seamless

Creating an intuitive onboarding experience is crucial for any product. For example, the product I'm developing, LiveAPI, includes various features that can be utilized more effectively with proper guidance.

To achieve seamless onboarding, I will integrate react-joyride, a library that enables step-by-step walkthroughs to make interfaces approachable and user-friendly.

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What is React-Joyride?

React-Joyride is a React library designed to create interactive tours for your application. It’s lightweight, customizable, and perfect for onboarding users or highlighting new features. The library allows you to define a sequence of steps that point to specific elements in your app, displaying tooltips with helpful guidance.

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Why Use React-Joyride in LiveAPI?

LiveAPI’s mission is to make API documentation Super-Convenient. So using this product should be easy for any user, despite their background. React joyride can help in this aspect by:

1. Highlight Key Features: Showcase important functionality step-by-step.
2. Improve Onboarding: Help users get started quickly without relying on external documentation.
3. Enhance Retention: Encourage users to explore advanced features through effective guidance.

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Example: Adding a Guided Tour to LiveAPI’s Public Project URL Form

Here’s a simple implementation of react-joyride in LiveAPI’s form for generating API docs. This feature allows users to input a public repository URL and instantly create API documentation.

Code Implementation

import Joyride from "react-joyride";

const PublicProjectUrlForm = ({ githubURL, setGithubURL, handleOpenGithubUrl, buttonIsDisabled, apiLoading }) => {
  const steps = [
    { target: ".step-1", content: "Enter the public Git repository URL here." },
    { target: ".step-2", content: "Click this button to generate documentation." },
  ];

  return (
    <div>
      <Joyride steps={steps} run={true} continuous showProgress />
      <textarea
        value={githubURL}
        onChange={(e) => setGithubURL(e.target.value)}
        className="step-1"
        placeholder="Repository URL"
      />
      <button
        onClick={handleOpenGithubUrl}
        disabled={!githubURL || buttonIsDisabled}
        className="step-2"
      >
        Create Docs
        {apiLoading && <span className="loader" />}
      </button>
    </div>
  );
};

How the Code Works

1. Steps Definition:
   
   The steps array defines each step of the tour:

   • target: CSS selectors identifying the elements being highlighted (e.g., .step-1 for the input field).
   • content: Instructional text displayed for each step.

2. Joyride Configuration:

   • The Joyride component uses the steps array along with settings like continuous, showProgress, and showSkipButton for a seamless experience.

3. Callback Handling:
   
   A callback function can monitor tour events (e.g., completion or skipping) and manage the tour state.

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This implementation results in the following outcome:

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Key Features in the Example

• Customizable Steps: Each step points to a specific element using unique class names (e.g., .step-1).
• Continuous Mode: Ensures users navigate through all steps sequentially.
• Styling Options: Adapts to LiveAPI’s design aesthetic by customizing colors and text.

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How LiveAPI Benefits from React-Joyride

Integrating React-Joyride allows LiveAPI to deliver an exceptional user experience by:

• Guiding New Users: Helping them confidently generate API documentation.
• Highlighting Advanced Features: Showcasing unique functionalities like auto-sync and AI-powered code generation.
• Reducing Support Overhead: Addressing common questions directly within the interface.

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Conclusion

Through this example, we’ve demonstrated how to incorporate react-joyride into your project. This approach helps users familiarize themselves with your product more effectively.

If you’re looking for an easy solution to generate API documentation, give LiveAPI a try! Start your 7-day free trial by visiting hexmos.com/liveapi.