Stakeholders don't react to flowcharts — they react to things they can tap. This tutorial builds a complete five-screen onboarding flow in Principle, from imported artboards to a shareable prototype, with the transition details that make it feel like a real app.
Prepare your screens first
Principle animates differences between artboards, so name layers identically across screens: card, title, cta, dots. If a layer is named cta on screen one and button on screen two, you get a cut instead of a glide. Thirty minutes of layer hygiene saves hours of timeline surgery.
One driver per gesture
- Swipe driver on the card stack so paging follows the finger, with snap points at each page.
- Tap events on Continue and Skip, wired to the right destinations — including the skip-to-end edge case everyone forgets.
- Auto event on the final screen that advances to the empty state after 800ms, demonstrating momentum.
Transitions that sell it
Keep screen-to-screen moves under 350ms with matching easings, and let the page dots fade rather than slide — small elements moving less reads as more premium. The hero illustration on each page should parallax at half the card speed; it's the cheapest depth cue in the book.
Testing with the prototype
Mirror it to a phone and hand it to someone without instructions. Watch where their thumb hesitates — that's your real onboarding feedback, worth more than ten opinion meetings. Note every hesitation, fix the screens, and re-export before the next review.
Takeaway
A prototype that fits in an afternoon can settle arguments that meetings never will. Import clean layers, drive the gesture, and let stakeholders tap the answer themselves.