Visual & User Interface Design
Past Works for Plaxo, a Comcast company
User Interface and Visual Designer
About Plaxo Comcast
Plaxo, Inc. was a startup company founded in 2002 and acquired by Comcast in 2008. The company’s primary offering was online address book management. It also had features that integrated social networking, called the Plaxo Pulse stream. There were other initiatives I worked on, including its popular eCards product feature. The following Interface designs are projects I worked on primarily as a Visual and User Interface designer.
Redesign eCard Interface
The Legacy Interface
The objective was to update the legacy interface for a cleaner, refreshed look to align with trending interface styles and allow room for user onboarding efforts.
Initial Concept Design
We explored various iterations and concepts for review. Our UX methodologies were rudimentary at the time, and the team conducted much of the final design decisions independently. Because we were a small startup, pie-in-the-sky ideas were common in our ideation mockups. The team would collaborate and evaluate the proposed features, eventually simplifying the designs to a more feasible solution with engineering feedback.
Iteration Design
Here is a refined iteration where the team collaborated with feedback and decided on the most feasible features to produce. Still, the ideas here were undergoing more exploration on what to build.
Finalized Design
After reviewing various iterations with our Lead Designer, we arrived at a cleaner layout. In this final design, the banner displays a promotional theme and a small area for promoting a free site trial. Part of my responsibility was providing themed banners, promotions, eCards, and visual assets.
The redesign also evolved into an offering for eCard artists. Here would enable artists to contribute their talents to their page, which they can promote with an exclusive URL, in exchange for using their cards on the site.
Onboarding User-Flow with Email Confirmation
Case Summary
With the home landing interface, we featured a splash ad to have users sign up for a free trial of the Premium product.
Product Goals
The task here was to give a refreshed look and feel to the customer onboarding experience and improve the interface.
User Problem
Due to the dated interface compared to other social networking platforms, the interface didn’t convey the trust and branding level needed to generate interest.
Outcomes
We achieved a cleaner experience for users, making the onboarding process for users much easier to sign up for a new account.
Improved Email Designs
Case Summary
The idea here was to clean up and refresh the email formats.
Product Goals
Cleaning up the experience would enable trust and create interest in the product to generate more subscriptions.
User Problem
The problem with the legacy email was that it was too image-heavy, with mismatching colors, inconsistent layout, and hard to read through the cluttered information.
Outcomes
Reorganizing the information and utilizing the white space more effectively enabled better readability for users. It also allowed developers to efficiently process the designs through the client servers without heavy image uploads. Users were more likely to respond to the emails with trust without waiting for long image download times or missing images because the servers could not process them.
Legacy Email Interface
Redesigned Layout for Email Notifications and Promotions
Impact and Outcomes
Much of the redesign efforts helped to improve the User’s experience and helped to gain interest and subscriptions. Eventually, we were acquired, and I continued contributing to the company until my departure. I gained even more skills that landed my next position as a User Interface Designer for another startup company in the IoT space. My journey with Plaxo has been a worthwhile experience that I look back upon as being one of the most fun and creative projects I’ve had to work with, along with a great team of brilliant and talented individuals.
Also, our efforts to redesign the eCard site showed increased user activity and sharing with revenue increases per year through subscriber sign-ups through our free-trial service. By the time the company was acquired, it had over 20 million subscribers.
