SnapMail
SnapMail view of inbox and current message.
Skills Used
- Personas & Scenarios
- Requirements Analysis & Specifications
- Competitive Analysis
- Prototyping
- User Interface Design
Goal
This was a semester long project for a user interface design class. Each group was to redesign a commonly used piece of software, such as a word processor or email client. My group decided to redesign an email client because we felt there were many improvements that could be made to the functionality and use of email.
SnapMail won first place at expoSItion, an annual department-wide event for students to showcase their work.
What we did
Before beginning the design process, my group performed a competitive analysis of 4 non-web based email clients (OS X Mail, Thunderbird, Pine, and Outlook Express) and went over positive and negative aspects of the individual client. We came up with a basic concept for our email program, and then used personas and scenarios we developed to flesh out the requirements analysis.
Our main goal for SnapMail was to develop an email client that supported the way people actually use email. For example, the members of our group and many people we talked to were using their email as a "to do" list. However, they encountered problems when email to-do items scrolled off of the main screen and were forgotten. SnapMail was designed such that a user can "postpone" an email until the time that they need it, when it will "snap back."
We began the design process with thumbnail sketches of various aspects of the program. From these, we selected the most promising designs and developed them further. This process continued until we had final mockups, created with Adobe Illustrator.
Group Members
- P. Glowacki
- S. Jayaraman
- N. Scholtz
Documents
- Final Report
- Right click to download