Gamifying the inbox triage flow for Yahoo Mail
Collaborators
Product Manager
UXR Researcher
Engineering
Design partners
Timeline
Early 2024 - Present
Planned GA launch in early 2025 for iOS
Role
Lead product designer
Is there a different way to review emails than the traditional scroll?
Email overload is a major pain point for many users.
Rethinking the inbox scroll
Yahoo Mail’s current Inbox view
Many of YMail users struggle with feeling overwhelmed at the amount of unread emails in their inbox. To solve for this, we wanted to reinvent what it would mean to triage (read, delete, mark as read) emails in the inbox using gamification.
Ultimately, our goal was to create a new email interaction experience that reduces the energy required to quickly review emails. Our hope was that this new feature would increase the number of emails a user triages on a daily basis.
Exploring initial layouts
Early prototypes of Catch Up: List (left) and Card (right)
After conducting a competitive analysis of apps that utilize quick action interaction models, we began the design process. Initial designs contain four triaging options: Done (mark as read), Skip, Glance, and Star. These actions were based off of internal data around what actions users take on their emails the most.
For this first round, we called the feature Gamepad to reflect its fun and engaging nature.
Going back to the drawing board
Updated Gamepad UI with two buttons + onboarding
Gamepad began as a feature meant to be quickly tested, but we realized that the project needed much more product thinking and rationale before it was shown to users.
Our user base is extremely dedicated to their email routine, but Gamepad’s four-button quick triaging interface would drastically alter their mental model. To avoid user apprehension, we decided to refine the scope: either the user triages the email, or they don’t. This model renders the decision-making process to a simple yes or no.
Refining designs and building flows
Breakdown of Catch Up UI across two variants for UXR testing
Basic flow for Catch Up
With the help of feedback from design partners, Catch Up (new name for Gamepad) was much sleeker, cleaner, and simple, as broken down above. We focused on a list display to avoid unnecessary design and eng complexity.
Two variants were explored to see how users reacted to an ascending or descending view. These variants then went through UXR testing.
Getting designs in front of users
87% of users tapped on “keep going” to load more unread emails
68% of all users who entered Catch Up finished at least 1 session
“The more I use it, the more I think it’s convenient to have the unread emails pulled away from the old. Feels cleaner.” - Tabitha, 53
We received high levels of approval from users, of which 60% said they would be interested in using Catch Up to replace their normal email triaging methods.
An interesting insight was that users viewed the feature as a mode for exclusively triaging. This mental separation from the normal inbox scroll showed us that users are more open to alternative triaging methods than we previously believed.
UXR findings resulted in 3 design recommendations:
Prioritize making the association between the buttons and the emails clearer
Explore additional functions like email preview, favorite/star, reply, etc.
Improve content to reduce confusion around “keep unread”
Final polishes
UI improvements to main screen and new email preview feature, as recommended by UXR
Educational onboarding to clarify how, when, and why users should use Catch Up
Implementing additional ways to remind and upsell the feature to users
Leading designs for an end-to-end experience
This was the first project I had led from conception to launch as a designer. In doing so, I learned to make design decisions on the fly and defend my designs with data as well as my design knowledge and intuition. I also was expected to think about my work much more holistically—how was my design fitting into the app’s ecosystem in addition to users’ existing mental models?
How to collaborate
Being a leader requires an incredible amount of collaboration. My engineer partner was building my designs right after I finished them, and working in this iterative cycle tested both my design finesse and communication skills.
Storytelling
Catch Up was presented to a slew of stakeholders many times over. In this process, I learned how to sell my designs via storytelling. Building a story from the user’s (and the business’s) POV helped get stakeholder buy-in, which was essential to eventually getting the feature live.
Reflections
Next project:
YM Plus ↗
Back to:
YMail ↩