Molto (part 1)- rethinking the email experience [Perion, 2011]
Background
In 2011, Incredimail, an email client that provides a unified inbox with graphic content galleries, wanted to enter the tablet market. Developing an email client for personal usage and not work-oriented, designed especially for iPads.
Research
My research started with a simple yet broad question:
“How do people use their iPad; where, when, and how?”.
iPad 1 was released to the U.S. market on Apr. 2010, and I started my research at the end of 2011. This new device was still unknown in terms of usage and behavior.
What do people use it for? Work or leisure? Is it a creation device with its incredible gestures, or it’s still a consume-purpose device? Where do people use it? At home or work? Is it being used on the go?
What made it even more difficult was that non of the project members owned an iPad. Some of us did play with it, but non of us really owned one and had any real-life experience using such a device.
On the other hand, coming to research with no perceptions is a great situation to begin research with.
My research findings were surprising. The tablet is mainly a leisure device. It’s mostly used at home, and people don’t carry it with them.
It was also clear that email is the number one activity on tablets, and it’s being done at home while lying back on the couch or at bad, probably as a second screen.
This device is for consuming, not creating, mainly for personal and leisure content.
Experience strategy
Do you remember your personal email from 2011? Email these days is the channel for personal communication, including messages and photos. Personal messaging apps are in their early stages (Facebook Messenger for iOS and Android was released on Aug. 2011. Whatsapp was released to iOS on Feb. 2009). For any social activity, we receive an email.
At the same time, services like Groupon started to flourish, and our mail became a platform where we consume more than personal communication.
Combining this reality with Molto’s business goal to penetrate the rising tablets market led me to a bold experience strategy:
“Your personal life magazine”.
We wanted to create a personal email experience for both; the new email content (social and marketing content) and the iPad’s unique experience. An experience that is specially designed for this new and fantastic device.
Both iOS native email client and Gmail native app used the familiar master-detail UI pattern used in desktops. A great pattern to support productivity, but we wanted to create an interface for leisure. The pattern presented by both Linkedin and Flipboard was much more suitable for the desired experience we wanted to convey.
A spatial UI pattern that supports the need to present different types of content and presents a horizontal scroll that makes the experience magazine-like and much more tablet-oriented.
Design and validation
Finding the correct UI pattern for the experience strategy we wanted to convey was a massive step in my research and actually the end of it.
When you want to present a new behavior to a service that holds a familiar one, the new behavior needs to reach perfection. The new interface must incorporate all the familiar functionalities but in a different way.
From this point, my UX team started creating dozens of mock-ups and prototypes to reach a new intuitive behavior for email.
During this process, we performed three usability validations. These validations were conducted when we reached a valid concept.
Prototype- The test was performed on high-fidelity wireframes.
Participants- We’ve reached out to Incredimail users and conducted usability tests in the participant's homes.
Redesigning the email experience
The final design used a two columns layout. Each column can consist of one to five cards. Two “rules determine the number of cards”.
The first rule is the email content; does it include pictures and/or attachments and the number of words.
The second rule is based on a finding from the validation process. The number of cards in each column cannot be equal. This rule prevents “horizontal rows” from being created. “Horizontal row” brakes the columns layout that creates the card's order.
Unread/read- The cards used a white background to represent unread and a gray one to represent read. We’ve understood that we’re presenting a new behavior for a crucial one. Although we’ve also used the email title text style change, bold for unread and regular for read, which is familiar to all email services. We’ve decided to also add the familiar blue dot from the iOS native mail app.
The sender picture- Another new behavior we presented was adding the sender’s picture. This pattern was embraced from social media to increase the sense of a personal experience (in 2012, it was only used in social media).
Abandoning the master-detail pattern presented productivity UX challenges. Although our experience strategy is aimed at leisure and not a productive one. We knew we must address differences that may lead to friction in perception.
Perceptional frictions are crucial for helping users transcend from a familiar experience to a different one.
While in the master-detail pattern, it is possible to view the email content without navigating to another screen. A tiles pattern requires a drill-in behavior, which is less effective.
Exploring the device gestures led to a creative way to compensate for it. Before users drill in, they can quickly pick (scroll) inside each card. This behavior enables a quick look inside the mail and the ability to act (reply, mark as read, etc.).
Card's physicality- we used the “physical” aspect of the cards to emphasize the feeling of moving the cards to another folder.
Other screens
Living with the app (usability testing)
Once we developed the alpha version, we had to validate it. Although I’ve performed user testing along the design process and felt confident with our final version. I wanted to perform profound user testing on the alpha version before we launch it in the app store.
But this test was not a straightforward one. I knew from previous tests I did that the first time users interact with this new email interface, they experience friction. I also knew from the user tests I performed that they understood the new behavior once they overcame the first steps. How about we do a test that mitigates first-time friction?
I’ve contacted a consultancy in the U.S. that specializes in user testing. Once they realized the challenge of testing this app, they suggested a continuous test methodology. A seven days test to evaluate the learning curve and users’ perception over time. Within these seven days, we conducted three tests; on the first, third, and seventh days.
Test objectives:
Evaluate the user-friendliness and ease-of-use
Get feedback on the interaction design and visual design of the product
Evaluate how well the innovative inbox design is received
Understand how steep the learning curve is
Evaluate users’ perception of the learning curve and the innovative features over time (7 days)
Overall the app was well received; participants liked the look & feel and found the navigation within the app very intuitive. The learning curve was not very steep for most participants:
After initial exposure, about half of the participants reported they were ‘getting the hang of it,’ while another half reported the app was ‘a piece of cake’ to use. After three days of use, 14 out of 21 participants reported being ‘very confident’ in using the app, while the rest reported being ‘somewhat confident’.
This method enabled us to observe and understand the challenges of getting used to this unfamiliar interface. And at the same time, recognize users' delightful moments while using this fantastic and innovative interface.
How did the market react?
“This is an innovative email app that blends messaging, email and photo-sharing in a neat interface.”
The Guardian, 2013
700K downloads - Molto reached approximately 700K downloads on iOS and Android.
Messaging apps - When Molto was launched, personal communication moved from Email to Instant Massaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp.
Photo sharing - Photo sharing also started moving from Email to Social and messaging apps, reducing the need to share photos via email.
These two changes in personal communication eliminated the essence of Molto’s experience strategy; your personal life magazine and the need for personal communication Email.
