Postie

Postie is a modern redesign of a legacy email triage system, originally built in the early 2000s. The platform had become inefficient and difficult to scale. I supported UX research and led UI design to improve inbox clarity, workflow efficiency, and usability across multiple internal departments.

Status: MVP in development
Role: UX/UI Designer
Team: Cross-departmental stakeholders, product lead, internal devs
Tools: Adobe XD and Photoshop

Problem

The legacy system lacked:

  • A clear folder or inbox structure

  • Scalable sorting/filtering capabilities

  • Usability for cross-department needs

  • A modern, accessible UI suitable for long-term use (e.g., no dark mode, no threading, limited support for inclusive design practices)

The legacy system lacked:

  • A clear folder or inbox structure

  • Scalable sorting/filtering capabilities

  • Usability for cross-department needs

  • A modern, accessible UI suitable for long-term use (e.g., no dark mode, no threading, limited support for inclusive design practices)

Goal

  • Reduce time to triage and respond to emails

  • Improve filtering and search UX

  • Modernise the interface for clarity, accessibility, and focus

  • Ensure accessibility and responsiveness

  • Reduce time to triage and respond to emails

  • Improve filtering and search UX

  • Modernise the interface for clarity, accessibility, and focus

  • Ensure accessibility and responsiveness

Discovery & Research

I used a design thinking approach to guide the process. Interviews with stakeholders from multiple departments (e.g. Call Centre, Compliance, Payments) were conducted to gain an understanding of frequent workflows and pain points. Existing user flows were mapped out to visualise friction points. Questions that were asked included:

  • Which filters are most useful day-to-day?

  • What actions should be always visible?

  • Would new windowed or split-view modes improve flow?

I also reviewed best practices for usability and accessibility in internal tools, using research to support decisions (e.g. contrast for dark mode, minimising cognitive load, reducing visual clutter).

Key UI Improvements

Navigation & Folder Structure

Navigation &
Folder Structure

  • Concepted left nav improvements for managing multiple inboxes and user-created folders

  • Introduced status-based “bubble” filtering for rapid triage of high-priority emails

Inbox View Enhancements

Wireframing
& UI Design

  • Introduced sort/filter modal, Open/Closed tabs, and improved keyword search.

  • Suggested optional threading or message history scrolling

Dark Mode Exploration

  • Proposed a hybrid approach where only the primary content pane remained light — helping direct user focus

  • Audited brand colours and applied a desaturated palette for dark environments

  • Removed shadows and refined icons for legibility

  • Proposed a hybrid approach where only the primary content pane remained light to help direct user focus

  • Audited brand colours and applied a desaturated palette for dark environments

  • Removed shadows and refined icons for legibility

Templated Compose Tool

Templated
Compose Tool

  • Proposed quick-access email templates

  • Considered multi-pane layouts or draggable windows to allow reference to past messages during composition

  • Proposed quick-access email templates

  • Considered multi-pane layouts or draggable windows to allow reference to past messages during composition

screenshot of interactive Things To Do map for Visit Quilpie Shire
screenshot of interactive Things To Do map for Visit Quilpie Shire
screenshot of interactive Things To Do map for Visit Quilpie Shire
screenshot of interactive Things To Do map for Visit Quilpie Shire

Outcome

The redesign prototypes have already gained positive feedback from stakeholders, who felt the new filtering and composition features reflected their real workflow needs. Teams said the interface felt more modern, intuitive, and easier to navigate. While the product is still in MVP rollout, this work has already improved confidence across departments that their needs are being heard and built into a solution that will scale with them.

Reflection

This project really showed me the value of designing in an environment with lots of different stakeholders and priorities. Because Postie is used by so many teams, I had to find a balance between usability, scalability, and technical feasibility while still keeping the design simple and logical for day-to-day users.

It gave me a chance to practice applying human-centred design in a complex, real-world setting, and to see how important it is to communicate ideas in plain English so everyone feels part of the process — not just the design team.

One of the biggest takeaways for me was learning how to design for ambiguity. The brief was not always clear, and requirements shifted along the way, but collaborating directly with stakeholders helped me build solutions that could evolve with feedback and scale over time.