cloud storage

Creating email design system that scales

COMPANY

Box

ROLE

UX Designer

EXPERTISE

UX/UI Design

YEAR

2018

Project description

Box is a cloud content management and file sharing service for businesses. My role was to construct a fully designed email system that would allow other teams to design and develop their own email campaigns and product announcements.

OBJECTIVE

Worked with a large spectrum of brand translations and created email templates based off of different brand guidelines. Worked closely with product managers to understand stakeholder needs. Before we started designing, it was key to evaluate the different types of content that were typically communicated through emails sent from the organization. Working directly with marketing at this juncture in the process ensured that I was satisfying our stakeholders’ needs.

SKETCHES & WIREFRAMES

I adopted a module-based design approach to emails — designing small components that represent pieces of content that might be included in an email. At their most basic level, modules are predefined layouts combining text, images, and CTAs. Created modules by using different image sizes, text layouts, and button placements to establish a library of commonly used components.

Iterating different designs options

Wireframes

Creating wireframes for an email design system involves outlining key components and layouts for standardized email communications across a brand. This includes various email types (e.g., marketing, transactional, newsletters) and reusable design elements (e.g., headers, CTAs, footers).

Worked with a third-party development team, Stensul (NYC), an email generation platform on our HTML component library and complete style guide to explain the possibilities and components of our new email design/template system.

Various emails for marketing, newsletters, informative and transactions.

Results

Teams across Box now have the ability to quickly generate the emails they need to reach and engage their target audiences. The organization has been able to build more emails in less time, increase email quality, and reallocate agency spend toward more strategic projects that help move the business forward. With Stencul, Box completely transformed the way it does email.