Getting large amounts of information from users

Question

Say I have an app that requires a lot of information or insights about our users to function, what is considered the best way of going about this?

Thinking about forms, they would be too large and daunting for our users and we'd likely lose a lot of users before they've even finished signing up. Although this would probably be the ideal format for us, as it gives us what we need up front.

Thinking about progressive profiling, this doesn't work too well for our use-case as we want users onboard as fast as possible and actually using the app, but we can't let them use the app without enough of their information.

Thirdly is a machine learning approach and where we want to head eventually, but we would need a large set of data to get working with initially and it's very likely this would all change depending on which city, company, or institution we're targeting.

Answer 1

I think the best way to get the user onboard, in this case, would be to show why do you need all the information, and what the user will gain by inputing it on the app. This article suggest a series of steps for great user onboarding. The first two are:

1. Remind users why they need your product

You could give the user some examples of the value the app would provide after the information input.

2. Maintain momentum

It is hard to maintain momentun in a long walktrough, but there are ways of making a long form easier for the user, like breaking the form in logical groups of inputs and allowing the user to come back later to finish inputing information.