LetterChat is an email app that helps users view/reply email conversations easily and focus on the useful emails/information through messaging style emails and smart email classifications.
SELECTED iOS UI MOCKUPS
INTRO
Challenges
1. How to help users check and reply email conversations easily?
2. How to help users focus on the more relevant emails?
3. How to help users find the core information from the emails?
Personas & Scenarios
1. Professionals who use emails for communication.
2. Users who use emails for receiving and saving useful information. (Such as receiving receipts, reservations, tickets through emails.)
Solutions
1. Allow users to check the emails sent by others and the emails sent by themselves in the same screen. And provide a lighter reply solution.
2. Reduce the distracted/irrelevant emails when users find the relevant emails in the inbox list.
3. Pull out and present the core information from the the emails rather than the email themselves.
Role
As the only designer in this startup, I am working with CEO, product managers and developers to design and implement the whole product. (Product Strategy/Concept, User Experience, Visual, Branding)
FEATURES
1. Messaging Style Emails
Considering both utility level and emotion level, we adapt chatting app style to this email product. Users can check the emails that sent by others and themselves easily. Besides, the messaging style design gives the serious email product a more friendly look.
The bubble mode is good for viewing short emails. But for the emails which are long or with complicated formats, the full screen mode (email details screen) is more helpful. That's why we allow users to tap on the bubbles to check the emails' original layouts. We will hide the email topics under the headers in email details screens, if the bubbles that users tapped are not the first bubble in that conversation.
The interaction flow.
The process for designing the bubbles.
The process for designing email details screen.
2. Reply Emails
Taking chatting app as the reference to the design the reply feature, we also consider the scenarios that users use email products. (Reply to All, Reply, Forward; To, Cc, Bcc.)
The default reply is “reply to all” if there are multiple receivers on that email topic (email subject). But users can switch to “reply” or “forward” by tapping the reply icon in the top-left corner within the reply area. Users are also allowed to switch to the traditional composing mode to adjust “To, Cc, Bcc”.
The interaction flow.
The process for designing REPLY.
3. Classify & Cluster Emails in Inbox
We defined the emails as "need response" and "do not need response". We filter out the "do not need response" emails into 5 categories (Finance, Orders, Trips, Entertainment, Social & Promos). And cluster them in the inbox list, so as to leave a cleaner list that allows users to focus on the "need response" emails in inbox.
The process for designing the inbox list.
4. Card View for Presenting the Core Information
We're trying to pull out the core information from the clustered emails. And present the core information in the carefully designed card views, rather than showing email list.
The process for designing the Card View.
The process for designing the Menu.
5. Contact Details
How many times have you searched emails by the senders' names or email addresses? We provide contacts list and contacts details screen for allowing users to check all the email conversations with the senders. We also filter out the files from the emails, in case that the users want to find the attachments.
THANKS
2017