Chat Mail

The Challenge

Emails, a cornerstone of digital communication since the 1970s, have seen little evolution in their core design. I've been tasked with reimagining and rewriting the email experience, bringing it firmly into the modern age to resonate with a younger audience.



My Role

Prior to my involvement, initial user research had already laid the foundation for this project and a user persona had been created. I have been responsible for advancing the research, conceptualizing user flows, generating initial wireframes, and refining visual design and branding elements to produce high-fidelity wireframes for user testing.

This process aims to pave the way for a more captivating, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing email platform.

After reviewing the existing research, I conducted an in-depth analysis of prominent platforms, including Gmail, Outlook, Slack, and WhatsApp. This exploration sought to identify strengths and areas for improvement in their functionalities and user experiences.

Based on my research, I identified three key points that I aimed to address:

Streamlining Dashboard organisation:
There was redundancy in the main email organization functions, such as folders, labels, favourites, and important/starred designations. I sought to devise an intuitive system that simplifies and optimizes the dashboard's organization.


Intuitive Message Handling: The separation of the inbox and outbox was found to be non-intuitive and potentially disorganized. To enhance user experience, I proposed implementing threaded-style chats to facilitate seamless communication.

Integration of Canned Responses:
 I recognized the need for a feature that allows users to easily access and utilize canned responses, providing a simple and efficient way to respond to common messages.

Following the creation of the grey wireframes, I transitioned into refining them into high-fidelity representations. This involved a consideration of colour schemes and branding elements to ensure a cohesive and visually engaging user interface. This phase marked a significant leap towards a polished and user-centric end product.

Following the creation of high-fidelity designs, I proceeded to develop prototypes that were ready for testing. This pivotal step allows for interactive exploration and validation of the proposed design concepts with users, providing valuable feedback for refinement.

Dashboard Navigation

Canned Response

Tagging an Email

The next crucial step in this project is conducting user testing to evaluate the designed user flows and dashboard navigation for any potential issues, allowing us to refine the design. These prototypes serve as a starting point, with additional user flows to be designed, prototyped, and refined before the product is ready for hand off to the engineers.

I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of this project, where the goal was to re-imagine email for a younger audience and bring it into the modern age. I believe I have successfully achieved this objective. The design feels fresh and the introduced features are geared towards helping users save time and stay organized.

Posted on Oct 15, 2023

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