The User Should Always Know What Stage They Are at in Any Given Journey
Some of the worst experiences in digital products come from not adhering to this principle. For example, a user’s profile page that can’t be saved because there’s another step to complete or the user who abandons their checkout journey because they’re not sure how many more steps there will be.
Most users will approach your product with an incomplete (or non-existent) conceptual model of how it functions—this is normal. You need to expose some of this to the user, so they can understand how to use the product.
Although the user will not consciously “know” what stage they’re at, at all times they should at least have a general sense of it and you can deliver that experience with some simple cues. Much like landmarks in the real world, your product should include visually different areas that serve as landmarks in the product.
The home screen should...
