Introduction
Duration: 3 months (Latest version)
Goal: redesign the email experience
Work: UI/UX research and design, landing page, animations, deck, branding, frontend design, product management. I used these softwares and frameworks:
Figma
Sketch
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Visual Studio Code 
HTML
Github 
CSS 
Vue JS
Spotify (for motivation)
The Problem
People find themselves spending hours sorting, reading, writing and organizing an excessive amount
of
messages.
While there have been some advancements in email technology, such as the introduction of web-based
email and mobile apps, these changes have mainly been incremental and have not fundamentally changed
the way that email works.
The Research and interviews
Main Findings
People spend too much time reading, writing, organizing emails.
Most emails are unimportant, irrelevant, spam or subscriptions.
A lot of people use unread emails as a to-do list which is inefficient.
Using these observations, I went back to the drawing board and started ideating…
User Experience Brainstorm (UX)
One of the biggest challenges in redesigning email software is the need to balance innovation
with
familiarity. Many people are used to the way that the traditional inbox works and any significant
changes to the interface or functionality could be confusing or frustrating for users.
The goal is to transform email into
the
great
tool it was designed to be rather than the chore it is today which is why I need to focus on its
biggest pain points.
Let's break down the keywords I found
most important to fix the inbox user interface.
Email needs to be visual and focused, to find what you need quickly with no clutter. It
needs to be
intuitive so people know how to use it out of the box. It also needs to save time, so we’re
going
to need good automation.
Note: Due to the nature of this software, the user experience can
be
greatly improved by so-called accelerators such as keyboard shortcuts, touch gestures, or voice control.
Kanban is visual and intuitive
Kanban is a project management method that was originally developed by Toyota in the 1950s to improve
the efficiency of its manufacturing process. It is now widely used in various industries and has
proven to be particularly effective in task management and organization.
Kanban for email is truly novel and is a great way to visualize and organize emails for every
industry:
Accounting: invoices, receipts, and bills.
Marketing: newsletters, promotions, and ads.
Sales: leads, prospecting, and follow-ups.
HR: job applications, interviews, and onboarding.
And so on.
Adding focus and automation
Now that our app is visual and intuitive, we need it to be focused and
automated.
I added focus by creating a Priority/Other switch, using AI to filter unimportant emails.
I added automation with what I call the Board Rules.
Using AI, this feature helps you automatically sort emails into boards based on their intent.
Let's
say Aiko Mail detects a scheduling
intent, you can create a board called 'meetings' and all of them will migrate there
automatically.
Bonus: some fun AI writing
Thanks to the very talented engineers at Aiko Mail, a feature I called Aiko Scribe was born.
It uses natural language processing and
machine learning to
generate personalized, coherent and relevant emails saving users time and effort and allowing them to
focus on more important tasks.
With this addition, Aiko Mail sets a new standard for productivity and innovation in the email
space.
UI Design
Section in progress...
Check out Aiko Mail website here.
Branding
Section in progress...
Check out Aiko Mail website here.