A new Ubuntu newsletter following a scalable, accessible and ‘mobile first ‘ design
Role: Visual Designer
Company: Canonical
Platform(s): Web, Mobile
INTRO
Ubuntu & Canonical
Ubuntu and its surrounding product teams frequently engaged with their users through a variety of different email campaigns e.g. product releases, company events and product on-boarding.
Example of previous newsletter
THE PROBLEM
99 problems but newsletter accessibility shouldn’t be one
The newsletters across the business were all built, formatted and designed differently. This was an unscalable solution to the business as it did not consider a ‘mobile-first’ approach. The business needed a solution that catered to all the existing email functionality while taking accessibility into consideration.
A few examples of previous ubuntu company newsletters highlighting the discrepancy in templates.
Having introduced a new design system to the product suite ‘Vanilla’, it was essential the newsletters took into account design patterns. This new design needed to consider device accessibility and best design practises whilst offering an easily maintainable format.
Vanilla - Ubuntu’s designs system. It was a powerful tool to consolidate and inform design choices
MY ROLE
Functionality and form
I worked closely with the development team to provide an audit of the existing email campaigns and designs. The audit allowed me to gather a clear list of requirements in order to meet the needs of the different brands and stakeholders. It was then possible to create a component library that reflected the functionality needed.
Defining a successful email template involved exploring all content and design patterns the existing Ubuntu emails currently used
To test the template’s robustness, I created a variety of past emails within the new template to assure they still represented the brand and met each teams needs.
Testing the templates robustness with previous content
THE IMPACT
Less is more
A newsletter template was created that adhered to the new Ubuntu ‘Vanilla’ design system. This allowed the business to create simple yet elegant and consistent emails for each of their brands. This also allowed for innovation as the business could create new features and have them used by all stakeholders.
High fidelity newsletter mock-ups using previous content
TAKEAWAYS
Involve users more!
I enjoyed the size and short lead time of this task. It was satisfying knowing that our work directly impacted the experience of stakeholders across the business.
When approaching a similar task next time, I feel I’d gain more insight and confidence making decisions with more user and stakeholder’s input
As a designer it’s hard to resist the urge to include impressive visuals or more flair in concepts and designs. Sometimes the simplest designs are the most elegant solutions.