Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#1

Post by jason_shah » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:55 PM UTC

Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love
blog.jasonshah.org

Re: Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#2

Post by jason_shah » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 6:15 PM UTC

Aside from their new user experience, I wonder what the impact of the queue has been.

Does it make people want to use the app more or push the app out of memory?

Re: Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#3

Post by seivan » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 6:22 PM UTC

I wonder what their team looks like. Like, how many software engineers do they got going, and how many self-proclaimed product people and "Mobile UX super experts with awesome ideas" are around.

Re: Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#4

Post by WA » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 6:30 PM UTC

And another middle man accessing my mail. Privacy hell. Would never use.

Edit: Haiku style:

  Middleman sees mail,
  welcome to privacy hell.
  I would never use.

Edit2: Well, maybe not. Is it a client app or is it a middle man app? Why is it requesting permissions to Gmail instead of using IMAP? Weird.

Re: Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#5

Post by jason_shah » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 6:33 PM UTC

seivan wrote: post #3

I wonder what their team looks like. Like, how many software engineers do they got going, and how many self-proclaimed product people and "Mobile UX super experts with awesome ideas" are around.

According to AngelList, the Mailbox team is at least 5 people https://angel.co/mailbox-by-orchestra

I wonder if they have additional folks from the original Orchestra team pitching in right now given the fast rise of the app though. And I'm sure they can't hire fast enough right now... http://www.mailboxapp.com/jobs/

Re: Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#6

Post by sriramk » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #4

And another middle man accessing my mail. Privacy hell. Would never use. Edit: Haiku style: Middleman sees mail, welcome to privacy hell. I would never use. Edit2: Well, maybe not. Is it a client app or is it a middle man app? Why is it requesting permissions to Gmail instead of using IMAP? Weird.

Probably to be able to send push notifications for new email.

Re: Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#7

Post by nodesocket » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

The queue was really a genius tactic. It's addicting to check back, open the app, and see the number of people in front of you drop by hundreds or even thousands, and the total number of people behind you increase as well. Their traction is insane, seems to be somebody requests an invite every other second on average. The real-time updating of the queue was a super smart move.

Re: Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#8

Post by holman » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 6:45 PM UTC

I think the waiting list and UX built hype, sure, but not love.

The majority of tweets in my stream since it "launched" were negative. Interestingly enough, this is impacting their App Store rating, too:

http://cl.ly/image/0Z3P412a2l1Y (Screenshot)

Re: Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#9

Post by rossfeller » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 6:59 PM UTC

Interesting to note how the reservation system has impacted ratings in the App Store with a ton of one star reviews complaining about the wait. Might take a long time, if even possible for them to recover their average. Unintended consequences, or maybe they don't care?

Re: Mailbox UX: How Mailbox Builds User Love

#10

Post by jason_shah » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 7:36 PM UTC

holman wrote: post #8

I think the waiting list and UX built hype, sure, but not love. The majority of tweets in my stream since it "launched" were negative. Interestingly enough, this is impacting their App Store rating, too: http://cl.ly/image/0Z3P412a2l1Y (Screenshot)

There are definitely a lot of negative reactions to the queue.

However, it's more the new user experience once you actually have access that's building love. Naturally, waiting doesn't build love. Maybe some excitement, but also some animosity as we saw in this case. But if you can drive the excitement as they did for some people, but most importantly capitalize on the hype when people are actually using the app for the first time...that's when you build love IMO.