Inbox

Target users: Reviewers

Reviewers are users who actively review and approve content. Common job titles include: Creative Directors, Producers, Executives, Clients, or Project Stakeholders.

Problem Space

Reviewers lack a unified space where they can quickly access content they need to review in order to streamline their workflow. Because Reviewers receive share links (Reviews) through different channels (Slack, email, etc.) it's difficult to manage their tasks and provide timely feedback, slowing down the review cycle.

Design Goals

Starting Point

The initial version of Inbox was lacking smart tools such as filtering and useful organization. Additionally, we found that most users were not aware of its existence in the product or did not understand its value.

Understanding Industry Workflow

To kick things off, I worked closely with our Workflow Architect who helped with providing industry insights into typical video content review cycles: the key stages, various scenarios, and points of tension. I mapped out the review path for our current product and was able to identify areas where Inbox could help streamline.

Explorations Entry Points

After doing some competitive analysis, I explored two approaches for how to structure the primary user experience.

Direction A

Bring the user directly to the full Share link presentation with the option to navigate to their Inbox and see a list view. From there, they could quickly scan through all of their Share links.

Direction B

Bring the user directly to their Inbox interface with the respective Share link in focus and Inbox panel automatically revealed so they could quickly see other Share links.

Final

Ultimately I landed on Direction B based on the following principles:

• Inbox education: bringing users directly to their Inbox creates awareness about this centralized space where they can quickly access review requests
• Content-first: Direction B focuses users on the content rather than on a list of review requests. As a compromise, we can always provide the user with an option to view as a list.
• Fluid navigation: Users can quickly click through review requests in the left panel and immediately see the content change.

The tradeoff with this direction is that the asset is not immediately presented in a full screen view as the creator intended. However, the Reviewer can always click on the asset to go into a full screen player mode.

Share Link Cell Metadata

I explored various ways of presenting metadata within the Share link cells. I considered what information would be most useful to a Reviewer when scanning the panel. After reviewing the pros and cons, I landed on leading with the content rather than the sender. While leading with the sender is more typical for standard email clients, the primary focus of Inbox is the content.

Inbox Panel Organization

I explored various ways of organizing the panel contents while trying to consider an approach that would require the least amount of effort to navigate. Initially I thought it would be useful to separate the share links by date received, but we found that Reviewers don't typically receive several in one day.

Next, I considered separating by read state. After prototyping, I determined that the user experience became jarring and unexpected when navigating through the unread share links. Ultimately, the user could always use the 'unread' filter and quickly archive unwanted items.

Share Link Actions

In an effort to empower Reviewers with the tools they need to manage asset review requests, I explored ways to take quick actions directly on the share link cells.

Streamlined Workflow

The new Inbox interface offers users the ability to streamline their process: All review requests are centralized in one location with the ability to seamlessly navigate between them and leave feedback without ever having to leave their Inbox.