Onboarding: "the experience a customer has when they become oriented to a product or service." Experiences included in the Onboarding phase could be a self install kit, a getting started guide, a first time user experience, or contextual help mid-use. After a few months of working on a new Onboarding experience for Comcast, I came to the conclusion that designing for this phase in the user experience is more psychological than other kinds of interface design. It's about tying into the emotional state of the user: like playing a game or having a conversation. This talk provides a core set of principles for designing Onboarding experiences that tie into this psychological approach.