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Lumosity spiked active users through complexity, not simplicity  

Sushmita Subramanian - director of product design at Luminosty - finally has some data which support a novel UX pattern:

When Lumosity launched in 2007 to help people strengthen their brains with mental games, it exercised a common theory: The easier your sign-up process, the more users you'll bring in, the faster you'll grow. And for the most part, they were right. But what happened next surprised them: As they made registration more complex, users actually became more valuable.

By adding friction to the on-boarding process, people who complete the registration flow are likely to be aligned with Luminosity's target customer. The flow not only collects data from the user, but educates them how the product is valuable to them. If they don't make it through, they probably didn't want it. It's auto-segmentation.

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