Samsung
Designing an Adaptive Onboarding Experience to Guide IT Admins Through Setup
Role
UX Designer
Team
1 Senior Designer
1 Designer (me)
1 Senior Product Manager
2 Developers
Project Status
Project Timeline
June 2026 -> Present
Overview
Samsung Knox is a Mobile Device Management (MDM) platform that helps enterprises deploy, configure, and manage employee devices.
I own the design of an adaptive onboarding guide that helps new Knox users get started and explore the platform, adapting its guidance to their permissions and setup progress. I worked with a senior designer for feedback and to discuss blockers when needed.
Problem
New users struggle to know where to start and what to do next when setting up Samsung Knox.
5 in 9 interview participants felt overwhelmed learning how to set up Knox.
n=9 Interviews
“I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but I even had like difficulty figuring out how to [add] a device.”
-An IT Admin Participant
75% of users wished someone else had guided them through adding devices.
n=40 Survey
-> Research interview findings conducted by UX Researchers.
Our Users
New users have different starting points depending on whether they're evaluating the platform or joining an organization that already uses it.
Trial users
Evaluating Knox to determine whether it meets their organization’s needs. They need guidance to understand what to set up and how to explore relevant capabilities.
New Users at Existing Knox Organizations
Joining an organization that already uses Knox. They may encounter existing configurations, incomplete setup, or permissions limited by their assigned role.
Opportunity
How might we help new Knox users understand where to start and what to do next?
UX Requirements
Defining the goals and constraints of the onboarding experience.
Support different user starting points
Design an in-product guide that helps both trial users evaluating Knox and users joining existing Knox organizations get started.
Reflect setup progress
Ensure onboarding guidance accounts for completed steps and prerequisites.
Support role-based permissions
Account for differences in users’ access when determining which onboarding steps and actions are available.
-> Requirements defined in tandem with Senior Product Manager.
Design Approach
I examined established onboarding patterns and existing MDM experiences to inform the design of the Knox onboarding experience.
Explored onboarding patterns
I compared linear and non-linear checklists, guided tutorials, and optional contextual guidance across products such as Notion, ChatGPT, and Figma.
Reviewed MDM experiences
A finding I uncovered for first-login and onboarding experiences in Apple Business Manager and Microsoft Intune is that they do not offer an in-product onboarding guide experience.
Early Explorations
Informed by these findings, I explored guide structures, progress indicators, and contextual guidance patterns within the Samsung Knox Design System.
-> Collage of early explorations
Design Decisions 1/5
A non-linear checklist lets IT admins prioritize relevant tasks.
-> Before
-> Final Design
The Challenge. IT admins have different setup priorities, making a linear checklist too restrictive for their individual workflows.
My Decision. I designed a non-linear checklist so admins can choose what to complete first, to accommodate for their non-linear workflows.
Design Decisions 2/5
Locked steps make required setup dependencies clear.
-> Final Design
The Challenge. Some Knox setup tasks require multiple actions, but admins may not realize a follow-up step is needed to complete the workflow.
My Decision. I separated dependent actions into distinct steps and made each step available only when its prerequisites are met. I also collaborated with UX Content Writers to clarify these dependencies.
Design Decisions 3/5
Distinct step states communicate progress clearly.
-> Before
-> Final Design
The Challenge. Step states needed to communicate individual and shared progress without being mistaken for interactive radio buttons.
My Decision. I designed distinct visual states for onboarding steps and conducted an unmoderated usability test with 10 participants. Nine of the 10 participants verbally interpreted the visuals as progress indicators.
Design Decisions 4/5
A banner keeps permission guidance clear without cluttering each step.
-> Before
-> Final Design
The Challenge. Adding permission tags to individual steps introduced more UI elements to an already information-dense component.
My Decision. I used a banner to communicate access limitations when users lacked the required permissions, keeping individual steps uncluttered.
Design Decisions 5/5
Contextual coachmarks guide users through unfamiliar pages.
-> Final Design
The Challenge. Navigating to unfamiliar Knox pages can leave admins unsure which actions to take to complete an onboarding step.
My Decision. I designed dismissible coachmarks that highlight each step’s primary action and explain how to complete it, without dimming or interrupting the page.
Solution
An Adaptive Onboarding Guide for Setup and Exploration
-> Samsung Knox Dashboard page with Onboarding Guide
How it works. The guide adapts to each admin’s permissions and setup progress through a flexible checklist, clear step states, dependency guidance, permission messaging, and contextual coachmarks—helping users move toward their first device enrollment.
Measuring success and impact. As the guide is still in development, we plan to evaluate its impact by measuring time to first device enrollment and drop-off during trial evaluation.
Deliverables
I designed and delivered reusable components, step states, and contextual guidance for the onboarding experience.
3 new components, 5 step variants, and 3 new icons
45 step-state combinations across 14 product flows
Contextual coachmarks designed for 7 product flows
Retrospective
Prioritize the user goal over the full vision. I advocated for a floating guide that would let admins track progress without returning to the dashboard. We deferred it to focus development capacity on features that most directly helped users setup and explore the product. I stayed involved to work through these deferrals to ensure that we can still deliver the best and most optimal experience possible on release.
