New Inbox
Help Scout's shared inbox was overdue for a redesign. The existing experience was causing friction for support specialists and falling behind industry standards. I joined mid-project, took ownership of the redesign, and drove it from early strategy through shipped details while navigating opt-in complexity and cross-functional alignment.
Problem
Support specialists needed to close conversations faster and with more context. Help Scout's existing inbox experience had fallen behind industry standards, creating friction that put customer retention at risk.
Solution
We redesigned the inbox experience from the ground up, optimizing for legibility, context, and speed. A phased opt-in alpha let us validate the direction with real users before full rollout, iterating until opt-out rates dropped and users chose to stay.
Outcome
The alpha validated the direction and surfaced clear opportunities for improvement. Cross-functional collaboration was strong enough that an additional dev team was absorbed into the project to accelerate delivery.
Help Scout | Dec 2021-May 2023
I joined Help Scout to take ownership of the inbox redesign, co-leading strategy and research with the product manager. I facilitated a cross-functional workshop with executive, product, brand, and engineering stakeholders to align on direction and secure CXO-level buy-in. I owned the design end to end, from edge cases through visual QA, including front-end inspection and accessibility validation.
What is Help Scout?
Help Scout is a customer support platform built for teams that care about the quality of their customer relationships. Its core product is a shared inbox with chat, knowledge base, and reporting tools built in.
