Below is a complete illustrative Diagnostic for a fictional company — rendered by the same report system a paying customer receives. Skim it in two minutes; open the evidence when you want to challenge the reasoning.
Illustrative example only. The company, evidence and findings below are fictional and contain no confidential client information. The structure, depth and reasoning match a real Clarity Adoption Diagnostic™.
What you're reading for
A Diagnostic is not a list of recommendations. It's a structured decision. Every major finding below moves through the same six steps.
01
Evidence
What was observed?
02
Interpretation
What does the evidence suggest?
03
Diagnosis
Where is the likely friction?
04
Prioritization
Why does this deserve attention first?
05
Hypothesis
What should change if the diagnosis is correct?
06
Measurement
How will the company know whether the change helped?
Rivergrove is a fictional software platform used by regional conservation nonprofits to recruit, schedule and retain volunteers for habitat restoration work. Around 340 organizations have created accounts; roughly 90 run a project every month.
Illustrative example only. Rivergrove is fictional.
Do not spend the quarter on an onboarding checklist redesign. Spend two weeks removing the publish gate, then measure.
The question you asked
Organizations sign up, build a project, and then go quiet before their first volunteer event. Should we invest the next quarter in a redesigned onboarding checklist, or somewhere else?
What is being decided
Whether to commit one quarter of a four-person product team to an onboarding checklist redesign.
What we reviewed
A two-quarter activation export, the support-ticket export, and 14 client research interviews with volunteer coordinators.
Overall evidence strength
Strong evidence
Fix the publishing gate first.
Executive Brief
A two-minute read. Everything below it is the evidence.
Executive Decision Brief
The decision
Do not spend the quarter on an onboarding checklist redesign. Spend two weeks removing the publish gate, then measure.
The evidence
71% of accounts create a project but only 43% publish one, and the largest support topic in the provided export is the waiver text required to publish. Interviews independently describe stopping at the same field.
The recommendation
Make waiver text optional at publish with a supplied default, reduce required publish fields to three, make the live/draft state explicit, and surface the volunteer link immediately after publishing.
The measure
Publish rate (baseline 43%) and accounts reaching a first completed event with 3+ checked-in volunteers within 30 days (baseline 26%), compared 60 days after release against 60 days before.
The next decision
If publish rate rises but first-event rate does not, the invitation path — not onboarding guidance — is the next investment.
Rivergrove's coordinators are not confused about what the product is for and they are not losing interest. They stop at one specific place: publishing a project requires waiver text a small nonprofit rarely has on hand, and nothing makes it clear that an unpublished project is invisible to volunteers. Removing that gate is a two-week change in front of the largest measured drop in the funnel.
First Meaningful Value
The point at which your users experience the outcome they adopted the product to achieve.
What the product treats as success
An account is created and a project is created. Every activation surface in the provided materials treats that as completion.
What the user treats as success
First Meaningful Value for Rivergrove is not account creation and not project creation. It is the first completed volunteer event with at least three volunteers who showed up and were checked in.
The gap that matters
The product treats project creation as the finish line. The user treats a staffed workday as the finish line. Every measurement in the account is built around the product's definition.
Adoption Baseline
What is true today, measured from the evidence provided. Nothing here is modelled.
Adoption baseline
Accounts reaching a first completed event with 3+ checked-in volunteers within 30 days of signup
26% (88 of 340 accounts over the last two quarters)
Strong evidenceSource: Client-provided activation export, two quarters
Accounts creating at least one project
71%
Strong evidenceSource: Activation export
Projects published with a volunteer-facing signup page
43%
Strong evidenceSource: Activation export
Median days from signup to first published project
11 days
Strong evidenceSource: Activation export
Volunteer signups per published project (median)
2
Moderate evidenceSource: Activation export
Coordinators reporting they invited volunteers outside the platform
9 of 14 interviewed
Moderate evidenceSource: Client research interviews
Adoption funnel — measured, not modelled
Accounts created
100%
340 accounts over the last two quarters
Created at least one project
71%
−29 points at this step
Published a volunteer-facing project
43%
−28 points at this stepThe largest single drop
Reached a first event with 3+ checked-in volunteers
26%
−17 points at this stepThe outcome the baseline measures
The baseline is deliberately narrow. One primary outcome, five supporting indicators, all derived from evidence Rivergrove already had. Nothing here is estimated or modelled.
User Journey Map
The path your users are actually on, stage by stage.
User journey map — where the path holds and where it breaks
01
01 — Discover and sign up
Low risk
IntendedFind out whether this can replace our spreadsheet and group text.
ObservedCoordinator signs up, usually on a phone, often the same day they hear about it from another nonprofit.
Evidence: 71% of accounts create a project. 4 of 14 interviewed coordinators signed up during a conference session.
02
02 — Create a project
Medium risk
IntendedSet up the workday I already have planned.
ObservedA seven-step project form collects site details, hazards, tools, waiver text, accessibility notes and a volunteer cap.
Evidence: Median 11 days from signup to first published project. Support tickets show repeated questions about the waiver and hazard fields.
03
03 — Publish and invite volunteers
High risk
IntendedGet real people to sign up for the workday.
ObservedPublishing requires completing every field, including waiver text most small nonprofits do not have on hand. Sharing tools are on a separate screen the user must find.
Evidence: Only 43% of created projects are ever published. 9 of 14 coordinators said they invited volunteers by their own email or text instead.
04
04 — Volunteers sign up
High risk
IntendedSee that enough people are coming.
ObservedVolunteer signups appear in a dashboard, but coordinators who invited people outside the platform see an empty roster.
Evidence: Median 2 volunteer signups per published project. Support tickets: “it says nobody has signed up but I have twelve people coming.”
05
05 — Run the event and check in
Low risk
IntendedKnow who showed up.
ObservedCheck-in works and is well liked, but is only reachable from the event page on the day.
Evidence: Of accounts that publish and receive 3+ signups, 79% complete check-in. Positive mentions in 6 of 14 interviews.
06
06 — Return for the next event
Medium risk
IntendedDo it again with less effort.
ObservedDuplicating a past project is possible but not surfaced anywhere after the first event.
Evidence: Accounts completing a first event run a second within 60 days 68% of the time — a materially different population from those who never publish.
Clarity Lens™ Assessment
Clarity, Confidence, Relevance, Momentum, and Environment applied across the path to value.
Clarity Lens™ — five perspectives
Clarity of next step
Most worth addressing
After a project is created, nothing tells the coordinator that publishing is the step that makes volunteers able to sign up. “Save draft” and “Publish” look equally final. Evidence: 43% publish rate against a 71% creation rate; three support tickets in the sample asking “is it live?” (strong evidence).
Confidence to act
Most worth addressing
The waiver and hazard fields ask small nonprofits for legal language they do not have, at the exact moment they are trying to publish. The form reads as a liability decision rather than a scheduling task. Evidence: Waiver-related questions are the most common support topic in the provided export; 5 of 14 interviews mention hesitating over it. (strong evidence).
Relevance to user goal
Contributing factor
The product's success moment (project created) is not the user's success moment (people show up). Every prompt, empty state and email is written against the product's definition. Evidence: Interview language consistently describes success as “filling the day”; no in-product surface references volunteer turnout before the event. (strong evidence).
Momentum across the journey
Contributing factor
The path front-loads its heaviest work — a seven-step form — before any visible reward. The genuinely satisfying moments (signups arriving, check-in) sit behind that wall. Evidence: Median 11 days to first published project; check-in completion of 79% once users get there. (strong evidence).
Environmental support
Insufficient evidence
Coordinators are usually one person doing this alongside other duties, often on a phone in the field, and their volunteers already exist in a text thread. The product assumes a desk and a fresh volunteer list. Evidence: 9 of 14 coordinators invited volunteers outside the platform; mobile sessions are the majority of signup-day traffic. (moderate evidence).
Strengths to Protect
What is already working and should not be disrupted by the changes below.
Check-in is genuinely good and should not be touched.
79% completion among accounts that reach it, and the most positive language in the interview set.
Word-of-mouth acquisition is healthy.
71% of accounts create a project — unusually high, and evidence the promise is understood before signup.
Repeat behaviour after a first successful event is strong.
68% of accounts that complete an event run another within 60 days. The retention mechanism works once value is reached.
Top Priorities
The Top Three Areas Worth Addressing, in priority order. Each card carries its evidence and the mechanism behind it.
01High impactStrong evidenceArea 01
Publishing is a hidden gate, and the waiver requirement is where it closes
What to do: Make publishing possible in one step, and make the live/draft state unmistakable
Why it matters: First. It sits between 28% of accounts and the outcome the baseline measures, the evidence is strong from two independent sources, and the change is small relative to a quarter of engineering work.
Show the evidence
Evidence: 71% of accounts create a project; 43% publish one. Waiver and hazard questions are the largest support topic in the provided export. Five of fourteen interviewed coordinators described stopping at that field.
Likely mechanism: A required-field gate sits directly in front of First Meaningful Value, combined with an unclear state (draft vs live). This is a Confidence and Clarity failure, not a motivation problem.
02High impactStrong evidenceArea 02
The product's definition of success is not the user's
Why it matters: Second. High impact but larger scope, and partly dependent on fixing the publish gate first — otherwise the population it would help stays small.
Show the evidence
Evidence: Every activation surface in the provided materials treats project creation as completion. Interview language describes success as volunteers arriving. Median volunteer signups per published project is 2, below the 3 the platform's own check-in flow implies is a viable event.
Likely mechanism: A Relevance misalignment at the definition level: First Meaningful Value is defined as a product event rather than a user outcome, so no prompt, email or empty state is aimed at turnout.
03Medium impactModerate evidenceArea 03
Volunteers already exist outside the platform, and the product ignores them
Why it matters: Third, and explicitly a hypothesis. Worth investigating after the first change is measured, not worth a quarter of engineering now.
Show the evidence
Evidence: 9 of 14 interviewed coordinators invited volunteers by personal email or text. Support tickets report empty rosters for events the coordinator knows are full.
Likely mechanism: An Environmental mismatch: the product assumes it owns the volunteer relationship from day one. Plausible, but the evidence is interview-weighted rather than behavioural.
What Not to Do Yet
Work the available evidence does not support as an immediate priority.
Do not redesign the onboarding checklist this quarter.
The evidence does not support it: accounts are not failing to understand what to do, they are being blocked at a specific required field. A checklist would restate the instruction rather than remove the obstacle.
Do not build volunteer-recruitment marketing features.
There is no evidence yet that turnout is a supply problem rather than an invitation-path problem.
Do not touch check-in.
It is the strongest part of the product.
Recommended First Change
Recommended first change
Change
Make publishing possible in one step, and make the live/draft state unmistakable
Today
Publishing requires every field, including waiver text most small nonprofits do not have on hand, and “Save draft” looks as final as “Publish.”
Instead
Make waiver text optional at publish, with a default plain-language waiver Rivergrove supplies and the coordinator can replace later. Reduce the required publish fields to date, location, and volunteer cap. Replace “Save draft / Publish” with one primary action and an explicit state banner: “Volunteers can't see this yet.” After publishing, show the volunteer-facing link immediately, on the same screen, ready to paste into a text message.
Why this works
It removes the specific obstacle the evidence identifies, in front of the largest measured drop, without changing the product's model or requiring the volunteer relationship to move onto the platform.
Effort
Estimated small-to-medium: one designer and one engineer, not a quarter of the team.
Make publishing possible in one step, and make the live/draft state unmistakable
Today
Publishing requires every field, including waiver text most small nonprofits do not have on hand, and “Save draft” looks as final as “Publish.”
Redesigned
Make waiver text optional at publish, with a default plain-language waiver Rivergrove supplies and the coordinator can replace later. Reduce the required publish fields to date, location, and volunteer cap. Replace “Save draft / Publish” with one primary action and an explicit state banner: “Volunteers can't see this yet.” After publishing, show the volunteer-facing link immediately, on the same screen, ready to paste into a text message.
Success Hypothesis
What should change if the diagnosis is correct. A hypothesis to test, not a promised result.
Success hypothesis — to test, not a promise
If we change
Publishing no longer requires waiver text, and the live/draft state is explicit and unmistakable.
Then we expect
More accounts publish a project within 14 days of signup, and more reach a first completed event with 3+ checked-in volunteers within 30 days.
Because
The evidence indicates the drop between creation and publication is caused by a required field and an ambiguous state, not by lost intent.
We are wrong if
Publish rate rises but first-event rate does not — the obstacle was real but turnout is a separate problem, which moves area 03 to first priority.
We are wrong if
Publish rate does not move — the waiver field was not the binding constraint, and the next step is session observation rather than more form changes.
Measurement Plan
How your team will know whether the change actually improved adoption.
Measurement plan
PrimaryBaseline 26%
Accounts reaching a first completed event with 3+ checked-in volunteers within 30 days of signup.
SupportingBaseline 43%
Publish rate among accounts that create a project.
SupportingBaseline 11 days
Median days from signup to first published project.
SupportingBaseline 2
Median volunteer signups per published project.
SupportingBaseline available in the provided export
Waiver-related support contacts per 100 new accounts.
Guardrail
Watch for a rise in published projects missing critical safety details — if hazard reporting drops materially, the change traded one risk for another.
Guardrail
Watch check-in completion. It should not move; if it falls, something upstream changed the population reaching it.
Supporting
Comparison window: Compare the 60 days after release against the 60 days before, using the same activation export.
Honesty note
Rivergrove's volume means a change of a few percentage points will not be statistically decisive. The Measurement Plan states this explicitly so the team does not over-read a small movement.
30-Day Action Plan
30-Day Action Plan
Week 1
Confirm the baseline numbers from the activation export. Write the default waiver with whatever legal review Rivergrove uses. Scope the publish-flow change.
Owner: Product + engineering
Week 2
Build the single-action publish, the explicit live/draft state, and the immediate volunteer link. Keep hazard and accessibility fields available but optional.
Owner: Design + engineering
Week 3
Release to all new accounts. Instrument publish rate, days-to-publish, and waiver-related support contacts.
Owner: Engineering
Week 4
Review early publish-rate movement. Do not conclude anything about first-event rate yet — the 30-day window has not closed. Schedule the 60-day comparison.
Owner: Product
Supporting analysis
The evidence behind the decision above. Read it when you want to challenge the reasoning.
Prioritized recommendations
Recommendation matrix
Recommendation
Impact
Effort
Priority
Evidence
Make publishing possible in one step, and make the live/draft state unmistakable
HIGH
LOW
1
Strong
Redefine the product's success moment around volunteer turnout, not project creation
HIGH
HIGH
2
Strong
Investigate the invitation path for volunteers who already exist outside the platform
MEDIUM
MEDIUM
3
Moderate
Priority detail
1. Publishing is a hidden gate, and the waiver requirement is where it closes
The gap between creating and publishing is not caused by lost interest — these coordinators already have a workday planned. It is caused by a required field they cannot complete in the moment, with no clear signal that the project is invisible to volunteers until they do.
Evidence: 71% of accounts create a project; 43% publish one. Waiver and hazard questions are the largest support topic in the provided export. Five of fourteen interviewed coordinators described stopping at that field.
Likely root cause: A required-field gate sits directly in front of First Meaningful Value, combined with an unclear state (draft vs live). This is a Confidence and Clarity failure, not a motivation problem.
Likely impact: First. It sits between 28% of accounts and the outcome the baseline measures, the evidence is strong from two independent sources, and the change is small relative to a quarter of engineering work.
2. The product's definition of success is not the user's
Coordinators who publish still frequently do not reach a staffed event, and nothing in the product notices or helps. The platform's internal narrative ends before the user's does.
Evidence: Every activation surface in the provided materials treats project creation as completion. Interview language describes success as volunteers arriving. Median volunteer signups per published project is 2, below the 3 the platform's own check-in flow implies is a viable event.
Likely root cause: A Relevance misalignment at the definition level: First Meaningful Value is defined as a product event rather than a user outcome, so no prompt, email or empty state is aimed at turnout.
Likely impact: Second. High impact but larger scope, and partly dependent on fixing the publish gate first — otherwise the population it would help stays small.
3. Volunteers already exist outside the platform, and the product ignores them
The platform is competing with a text thread that already works. Asking coordinators to rebuild their volunteer list before they see value inverts the order of trust.
Evidence: 9 of 14 interviewed coordinators invited volunteers by personal email or text. Support tickets report empty rosters for events the coordinator knows are full.
Likely root cause: An Environmental mismatch: the product assumes it owns the volunteer relationship from day one. Plausible, but the evidence is interview-weighted rather than behavioural.
Likely impact: Third, and explicitly a hypothesis. Worth investigating after the first change is measured, not worth a quarter of engineering now.
Evidence notes
Observed evidence, customer-reported evidence, inference, and recommendation are kept separate.
Observed evidence
Activation export, two quarters: account, project, publish, signup and check-in counts.
Support-ticket export: waiver and hazard questions are the largest topic.
Customer-reported evidence
14 client research interviews with volunteer coordinators, including 9 who invited volunteers outside the platform.
Inference by analysis
That the create-to-publish drop is caused by a required field and an ambiguous state rather than lost intent.
That volunteer turnout is a separate constraint from publishing, which the measurement plan is designed to test.
Recommendation
Everything in Top Priorities, Recommended First Change, and the 30-Day Action Plan is recommendation, not observed evidence.
Key assumptions and limitations
Assumptions this analysis rests on
The activation export covers all accounts created in the period, not a filtered subset.
The 14 interviews are broadly representative of small conservation nonprofits using the platform.
What we could not determine
Whether volunteers who receive an outside invitation would have signed up through the platform if asked.
Whether hazard and accessibility fields carry legal weight that would prevent making them optional — that is Rivergrove's counsel to answer, not ours.
This report names observed friction, the strongest signals available, and likely root causes. It does not claim to prove causation and does not guarantee an adoption outcome.
Next step
Confirm the baseline numbers, ship the publish change in weeks 2–3, and run the 60-day comparison before deciding anything about onboarding guidance.
Illustrative example only. Rivergrove is fictional.
Next · Clarity Outcome Review™ — 90 days later
What the evidence showed.
Illustrative Outcome Review, 90 days later. Optional, purchased separately.
Was it implemented
Yes — released to all new accounts in week 3, with the default waiver and the single-action publish.
What moved
Publish rate among accounts that create a project: 43% → 61%.
Median days from signup to first published project: 11 → 4.
Waiver-related support contacts: down materially.
What didn't
Accounts reaching a first completed event with 3+ checked-in volunteers: 26% → 31%. Directionally consistent with the hypothesis, but a small absolute movement on this volume.
Median volunteer signups per published project: unchanged at 2.
Interpretation
The diagnosis of the publish gate is supported: the obstacle was real and removing it moved both the publish rate and the time to publish sharply. The turnout indicator barely moved, which means the second constraint is now the binding one — volunteers are not arriving through the platform's invitation path. That is what area 03 predicted, and it is now the evidence-supported next priority rather than a hypothesis.
Next priority
Investigate the invitation path: make it trivial to bring an existing volunteer list or text thread into a published project, and measure signups per published project against the 2 baseline.
A five-point movement on this volume is not proof. It is consistent with the hypothesis and inconsistent with the checklist theory that was originally on the table — which is what the decision actually needed.
Illustrative example only. Rivergrove is fictional.
Who reviews your Diagnostic
Founded by Kirsten Alburg
Kirsten Alburg founded Clarity Harbor and created the Clarity Lens™. Across 28 years of designing learning, onboarding and adoption experiences, she has worked on the same problem from many directions: people are given a product, a system or a program, and something between the first interaction and real capability quietly breaks down.
Kirsten owns the methodology and the quality standard: she defines how Clarity Harbor analyzes evidence, decides what a finding must meet to be delivered, sets the prioritization logic and maintains the standard every Diagnostic is reviewed against.
That's the product. Yours would be about your product.
Same structure, your evidence, your adoption question. Two weeks, fully async, roughly two hours of your team's time. AI assists the analysis; a qualified human expert reviews the work and approves the Diagnostic before it reaches you.
