snapkin
The habit · Decision 12 of 14
How much setup is worth asking for
Setup should give you a useful starting plan and explain what using the app will involve. How many screens do that best is an open question.
Last updated .
- What the app does
- Uses your body measurements, activity, goals and diet to prepare a plan. Setup has twelve steps for loss, eleven for gain and maintenance. Goal and pace come one after the other, after the answers the calculation needs. The optional target weight and the explanations stay folded away.
- How sure we are Thin , One small study, or an engineering choice.
- There is no Snapkin experiment that shows the best length. Reports about subscriptions and studies of app tutorials measure different things.
Which answers actually change something
Sex, birth year, height, current weight and activity go into the target calculator. The goal changes how many calories are added or taken off, and the protein rule. Pace changes the calories too. These answers are saved to your profile when you finish setup and are signed in. Your current weight is saved as a weighing. Before that, setup keeps a draft on your phone and asks the server for a preview of the plan.
Your diet and its optional note are saved and passed to the meal analyser and the coach. Your target weight is saved too. But it only changes the estimated time to reach it, not the daily calorie or protein target. It is optional when you are losing weight. The answers the calculator needs are still required. Gain and maintenance do not show a target date. The activity history used to suggest a level stays on your phone. Only the activity level you pick is saved.
Keep the actions clear of the home gesture
Setup leaves room for the phone's bottom safe area once, then adds normal footer spacing above it. WebKit's guidance explains how the phone's own safe-area values keep buttons clear of the home bar at the bottom of the screen, and why those values do not replace normal margins. Our private comparison shows this gap. A browser cannot measure a real phone's actual safe area.
The case for taking longer
In a RevenueCat interview report, Lose It! said that trial starts rose by 10% or more after they added questions. Some of those questions had answers they did not need. Each extra question helped less than the last. The claim comes with no sample size, no exact effect, no test method and no results on whether people kept using the app. It is useful evidence from people who do this for a living. It cannot predict what happens in this app.
Feeling that the plan is personal, and feeling committed, are likely reasons. That does not prove that time already spent causes people to subscribe. People who choose to finish more steps may already be more motivated. Any comparison must include everyone who started, including people who gave up during setup.
Extra explanation can have a cost
Nielsen Norman Group's 2020 study compared reading and skipping the opening tutorial, with 70 people across four fairly simple iPhone apps. People who read the tutorial rated the tasks that came after it as harder. Reading it gave no statistically significant gain in getting the tasks done, or in speed.
This is a reason to look hard at explaining things twice. It is not proof that every extra screen hurts. Showing something useful the app can do may still be worth it before asking for payment.
A broad diet, with room for exceptions
Your diet choice, the extra foods you avoid and the optional note all reach the analyser and the coach. Someone can choose a diet with no restrictions and also say they do not eat fish, without another setup step.
The diet screen asks for a broad diet choice. Under it is an optional, clearly labelled “Other foods I avoid” area. It is folded away until you open it. A few boxes you can tick on their own, such as fish, shellfish, pork and dairy, sit next to a text box for anything else. The ticked boxes are saved separately from the text. Only extra foods appear in the checklist and its folded summary. Foods the diet already rules out are left out. So a partial list, such as pork, is never shown as if it were the definition of pescatarian. If you change the broad diet, your ticked boxes stay.
Nielsen Norman Group's guidance on showing details step by step supports showing the main choices first, and showing the smaller details when asked. The label that opens them must make them easy to find. This is design guidance, not a trial of diet setup.
GOV.UK's checkbox guidance fits choices you can tick on their own. NN/g's switch guidance keeps switches for changes that happen at once. Checkboxes suit choices you collect before a confirm button.
The meta-analysis argues against treating every extra choice as harmful. It also does not show that complexity is harmless. The wide range of results is a reason to test whether people can state their own restrictions correctly. The suggested foods are our guesses, not a list of the most common foods people avoid, ranked by evidence.
A food someone does not eat is different from a mild dislike. Neither should be shown as a guarantee against allergies. The instructions we give the analyser treat the saved diet and note as rules to follow. But what is plainly visible in the food or on a label still counts. The checklist and the note both reach meal analysis and the coach.
The setup, and what remains to test
The setup keeps simple questions, one example showing an estimate being corrected, and a personal plan. The health connection sits next to the measurements. Pace has its own screen right after the goal. So the two decisions stay together without crowding the plan review. Body, activity and diet answers come before them, so the calculator has what it needs. Target weight and its forecast are optional. The default screens fit without scrolling on the phone sizes we tested. Opening an editor or an explanation may need scrolling. Notifications and detailed instructions come when they are needed.
Setup includes an animation of about five seconds, on purpose, after the real calculation comes back. It builds up the calorie target and the nutrient cards in place, then becomes the review screen. This is a product choice to give the plan more weight. It is not time the calculator needs. It does not mean an account has been created, and it is not evidence that more people subscribe. It may make the plan feel more valuable, or it may make people impatient. That trade-off still needs a Snapkin experiment. If you have reduced motion switched on, the cards stay still.
The test should compare paid subscriptions and real revenue per person who starts setup. It should also compare logging a first meal, continued use, renewals and refunds. Price, trial and where the users come from need to stay the same between the groups. More people finishing setup, or more trial starts, does not on its own show that the experience got better.
Ask for notification permission before setup finishes
After the meal-logging example, an optional reminder screen explains that logging everything makes your daily totals more useful. Its Allow button asks the phone for notification permission. Not now goes on without asking. Permission is not needed to subscribe. The default is one daily reminder, only when nothing has been logged that day. It is not a notification for every missing meal. Settings offers custom times and options per meal. Reminder times you already saved are kept.
You can grant permission before you create an account. The app registers your phone with the server after you sign in and confirm your email, without asking again. Browser previews only pretend to ask for permission. Web push is not supported. This is a product choice. It is not evidence that reminders improve weight loss, or that everyone should turn them on.