Email Redesign

2020
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GoToMeeting & other GoTo products

Summary: Each day, hundreds of new users are welcomed to LogMeIn products for the first time via email. This crucial touchpoint in the customer's journey needed an overhaul. I led design research to inform the changes and ensure that stakeholders endorsed the new direction.

Design decisions

The primary challenge for this project was to align stakeholders, many of whom had different visions for what this email should or could do. I set out to make informed design decisions based in design research from:

  • Stakeholder design jams
  • Co-design with customers
  • Competitive review
Three hand sketches for the design of an email. Participants have indicated ideas they like the most with dot stickers.
Participant sketches from stakeholders in Account Services, Customer Success, Marketing, Engineering, Product Documentation, UX & Product.

The things we kept

Upon surveying data from the design based research, I summarized dominant themes emerged such as conversational, inspirational language and reinforcing the parent and product brand. In a presentation, I articulated the findings and design direction to the internal participants and stakeholders. Open the full presentation on the design research (PDF)

A sample of the presentation slides about the new emails.
Presentation articulating design decisions. 2020
Tne final design for the new welcome email. The email is titled "Simplifying the way you work.", has a list of new products, and buttons to "Get Started"
Final design direction. Released in 2020

However, another guiding principle was not quite as universally desired among stakeholders: minimal marketing or support content in favor of a strong, clear call-to-action. This decision was driven by feedback from customers during the co-design sessions.

"Less is more. A ton of wording confuses people"
IT Manager, Co-design research participant
"Nice and plain and simple.
The basic items."
IT Director, Co-design research participant

I made the initially unpopular decision with Marketing and Support partners to leave out much of their suggested content. But by articulating the design research, I made the case that these emails had a singular goal: to have the user create their account. Ultimately I convinced them that, tailored product training and support tips were a better fit for nurture email campaigns that follow account creation.

On the left is an image of the old email. On the right is an image of the new email. Between are lines that show how the content of the old email is mapped to the new one.
I used this artifact to socialize the redesign and illustrate how the content changes in the old to the new email.

Feedback, early and often

With such a substantial change to the look and feel of the email, I recommended a cautious roll-out. I oversaw an early access period where I monitored the 33% of accounts who were transitioned to the new emails. The remainder were notified how to opt in for the early access period.

  • An additional 802 accounts opted in on their own
  • I fielded feedback from admins who turned "off" the new emails to document issues or bugs
  • I conducted six 1:1 interviews with customers using the new emails during this period
  • After 6 weeks without major issues, I recommended we move forward with the GA release

Better conversions, better conversations

Relying extensively on design based research was necessary for this project because the effectiveness of this email had traditionally been difficult to gauge. As part of this update, I championed improving our data metrics to include email click rates so that we can monitor if the user opens the email, clicks "Get Started", and creates their new account. Now, I can leverage multiple sources of data as uncover opportunities for enhancement, and spark richer conversations with stakeholders as we continue to partner in the design process.

Next up: Demystifying "designing for all"