Almanac.io is a productivity platform for asynchronous teams to collaborate in documents, with competitive features such as version control and document management. I worked full-time for Almanac as a growth marketing manager and product designer. As one of only 12 employees at a seed-stage startup, I had to pick up new skills, take ownership over major projects, and fully understand the company’s business strategy.
1. Sourcing 30 UX experts to Almanac's open source platform
2. Conducting 12 usability tests to inform product strategy
3. Designing prototypes for edge cases and new features
4. Fostering business growth
Based on the user research I conducted, I outlined four user personas. To avoid demographic bias, I constructed minimalist personas that would highlight the most relevant aspects of these different types of users.
While all four personas are important customers to consider, I focused on startup founders because those were the target users of our main marketing campaign, called “Startup in a box”. They were also the users we interviewed most and understood best. I constructed a customer journey map to outline the flow of each user as they get acquainted with the product.
Following Almanac’s design system, I made prototypes for login states, empty states, a chat feature, and permission states. I wanted to make the product feel fast, light, and powerful.
I redesigned Almanac’s login and signup pages, simplifying the layout and refining the copy. I made sure to address side scenarios, such as if a user forgets their password.
Empty states are crucial to a user’s onboarding experience, yet these states can be easily neglected by a busy design team. I designed empty states for the “teams” and “projects” features to teach users how to interact with the product when no docs are yet created.
While I was pondering the “engagement” phase of the customer journey, it occurred to me that team members may desire to communicate with each other via chat. Most teams are content with Slack, email, and other platforms, but doc-heavy teams may seek ways to communicate entirely within Almanac. I integrated a chat feature into Almanac’s doc editor, and I also prototyped what direct messages would look like on our platform.
As teams work on docs, they will share with each other, cross functional teams, and external partners. Not all of these users will be familiar with Almanac, and they will also have varying levels of permission to documents. I designed permission states to make sure that unique users would not get lost in our product.
When a user is signed in but does not have permission to a doc:
When a user is not signed in, but has commenting access via a shared link:
When a user is not signed in, and only has viewing access via a shared link:
