Role: Head of Design (part-time)
For a year I led design part-time at Unified Inbox, a global unified communications company, looking after the brand, the website and apps, and the designers working on them.
Context & Challenge
Unified Inbox brings people’s email accounts, social networks and other messaging channels together in one inbox. Users needed to connect as many accounts as they liked and still see their conversations in a way that felt simple and familiar. The company also needed a brand that held together across its website, its iPhone app and Outbox.pro, a Chrome extension for teams publishing and sharing on social media.
Approach & Decisions
I:
- Rebranded the company and developed the brand across every touchpoint
- Worked with my designers on the onboarding, set-up and everyday flows for the iPhone app, including how users add any number of accounts and how message threads are shown
- Owned quality and usability across the website, the iPhone app and Outbox.pro
- Mentored the more junior designers and advised the wider team on UX best practice
The aim was to make a busy, multi-channel inbox feel calm and easy to read.
Outcome & Impact
- A new brand carried consistently through the website, the iPhone app and Outbox.pro
- A clear onboarding and set-up flow for connecting multiple accounts and channels
- A message view that kept threads from many sources recognisable and simple
“Jake is one of the few designers I’ve met who truly gets the big picture while being able to execute it as well. He’s able to break down complex aspects of branding into elegant designs – no matter whether it is a logo, website, web or mobile-based software application – without breaking the link between all of the created materials.”
Toby Ruckert, CEO, Unified Inbox
Reflection
Unified messaging lives or dies on how easy it is to connect the next account and keep a crowded inbox readable. The brand mattered just as much, because people were trusting it with all of their conversations in one place.