Phone Link

Onboarding

Project overview

Phone Link is a native Windows application that enables users to seamlessly interact with their mobile devices directly from their PC—including core features like messaging, calling, photo syncing, and cross-device app streaming.

As a key product designer on the team, my primary focus was optimizing the cross-device linking architecture, designing frictionless progressive onboarding flows, and managing critical permission states before users begin their in-app journey.

The Problem: A Missed First Impression

When users open the Phone Link app for the first time, many don't understand its value. As a result, they skip critical permissions during onboarding, leading to a degraded, limited-feature experience. Users quickly abandon the app, driving low overall engagement.

Current Limitations:

Outdated Visuals: Static block illustrations are easily ignored and visually unappealing.
Unclear Value Proposition: Fails to effectively communicate core features and capabilities.
Lack of Guidance: Doesn't hold the user's hand or encourage feature exploration.

Old Welcome UX

What we want to achieve

1. Setup

Enable internet on the phone --> BT setup--> Notifications Setup  This is in the first tie user experience immediately after FRE

2. Secondary Setup: Unlocking Invisible Features

The Challenge: Core features (e.g., Cross-Device Copy&Paste, Mobile Hotspot) suffer from low discoverability because they require additional user permissions after initial setup.
The Solution: Surfaced these capabilities via a high-visibility notification banner in the side pane.
The Flow: Clicking the banner opens a targeted dialog that educates the user on the benefit and guides them through granting the necessary permissions.

lternatively, users can launch the Phone Link app directly to initiate pairing. Within the welcome dialog, our goal was to design an effortless, transparent permission-granting framework. By introducing a modular, feature-driven approach, users can explicitly choose which functionalities they want to access on their PC, giving them full control over their data and privacy from day one.