Client
Litmus
Industry
MarTech
Timeline
6 months
Role
Product designer and researcher
CHALLENGE
Litmus acquired an email personalization
built for developers.
Using it required writing code, so every task that should've been self-serve needed customer support instead. A tool meant to save marketers time became another dependency.
APPROACH
Kickoff
Defined core architecture and selected 4 content types to build, based on popularity, versatility, and ease of setup.
Beta
Rolled out gradually to 50+ users, tracking who initiated usage on their own.
MVP Launch
Shipped 4 core features to all users, tracking adoption rate and task completion.
Scaling
Continuous discovery guided new content types and capabilities over the next two years, until the project ended at acquisition
From complex workflow…
to visual builder
Our primary persona was the low-code marketing generalist: someone who understood the value of personalization but had no technical background to execute it, someone who thinks in terms of what an email looks like, not code and configuration.
KEY FINDINGS
The legacy tool required a developer's workflow
Every task meant writing code, waiting on support, or starting over. Marketers who understood what they wanted had no way to build it themselves.
Users can't complete without writing code
Users can't complete in less than 10 steps
Users can't work without support
Users can't start from existing content
RESEARCH
More flexibility = more friction
Moderated usability sessions and unmoderated click tests showed that starting from scratch took longer and produced more errors than starting from a template.
This shaped our decision on how much structure to build into the editor.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Structure without restriction
Every decision gave users structure to move faster, without taking away what they could create.
3 steps to finish
Faster with fewer mistakes
Structure that actually helped
On-brand customization
MVP
Template driven
Speeds up workflow and demonstrates use case
3 step flow
We reduced a 10 step flow down to 3 predictable steps
Structured flexibility
Users made fewer errors and this is now two lines
MVP launch on stage to 4,000 attendees
Maida Casper announcing our MVP release at Litmus Live conference
NEW
Template based
Illustrates value prop without explaining, speeds up workflow
Guardrails
Users made fewer errors and
Improving accessibility
Left navigation accommodates room for complex nav structures