Redesigning the Digital Mailbox
An outdated screen, lagging in tech and UX, was transformed into a more intuitive and useful tool, despite low business priority.
My Role:
Research, Design, Prototype
Platform:
App
Redesigning the Digital Mailbox
An outdated screen, lagging in tech and UX, was transformed into a more intuitive and useful tool, despite low business priority.
My Role:
Research, Design, Prototype
Platform:
App
Business Value
This project was part of a broader initiative to reduce paper mail usage and cut related costs.
The goal was to provide customers with a convenient digital mailbox that meets their needs, eliminating the need or desire for receiving physical mail via Israel Post.
Constraints
Upgrading the mailbox, which was developed years ago, to modern standards without complex or costly service developments.
Understanding the problem
Analyzing User Behavior
Using Glassbox, a data analytics tool, I examined real user interactions and identified major usability issues:
Significant difficulty in reading letters
The PDF display area was too small, requiring customers to enlarge it manually, disrupting smooth reading.
Inefficient controls
Action controls were positioned at the top of the screen, making it difficult to perform actions on letters lower down.
Unused features
Such as creating personal folders.
Listening and Learning
Through discussions with product and customer service teams,
I identified key pain points in managing the digital mailbox:
“The current situation is forcing them to open multiple documents until they found the right one”
“In some cases, customers struggled so much to find letters that they preferred to contact bankers for assistance”
"Some users ended up opening each letter individually just to clear the badge
Struggling to Locate Letters
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Customers didn’t know the exact names of the letters they needed.
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Even when they knew what to look for, letters only appeared by title and date, making it hard to tell similar items apart.
Struggling to Clear Persistent Notification Badges
There was no quick way to mark multiple letters as read, so notification badges remained unnecessarily.
Struggling to Locate Letters
Customers often did not know the exact names of the letters, forcing them to open multiple documents until they found the right one.
Letters appeared only by name and date of receipt, making it hard to differentiate between similar documents.
Listening and Learning
Through discussions with product managers and customer service teams, I identified key pain points that made it difficult for users to manage their digital mailbox. In some cases, customers struggled so much to find letters that they preferred to contact bankers for assistance.
Struggling to Clear Persistent Notification Badges
There was no quick way to mark letters as read, causing notification badges to remain unnecessarily.
Some users resorted to opening each letter manually just to clear the badge.
Competitive & Market Research
These insights shaped the ideation phase, transforming the mailbox from a limited archive into an extensible information management experience
Letter display:
Letter view:
Zoom in/out:
Filtering:
Actions:
Search:
Mark multiple letters as read:
Chronological list showing name & date
Full-screen
Pinch-to-zoom
By date
Delete/download single or multiple letters
Not relevant
Not relevant
Letter display:
Letter view:
Zoom in/out:
Filtering:
Actions:
Search:
Mark multiple letters as read:
Chronological list showing name & date
Full Page Slider
Pinch-to-zoom
By date & types of letters
Share single letter
Not relevant
Not relevant
Key findings from competitor analysis:
I analyzed how Bank Hapoalim compared to direct and indirect competitors in terms of quality and functionality: How much have other banks invested in their mailbox screens? What features have been developed?
Competitor analysis
Bank mailboxes solve viewing, not information management
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Bank mailboxes function mainly as passive archives offering basic document viewing but very limited tools for ongoing management, organization, or decision-making
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UX investment focuses on reading a single document rather than handling volume with minimal support for scanning, search, filtering, or bulk actions
Email platforms & PDF viewing tools
Documents are designed as part of an ongoing information flow
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Flexible Reading & Scanning Experience
Smooth transitions between overview and deep reading are enabled through previews and full-screen document views
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Built to handle volume
Search, filtering, and bulk actions are baseline expectations for managing content at scale
Finding the Right Solution Within Constraints
Together with the technological team, we explored multiple solution ideas to improve the mailbox experience, focusing on high-impact changes that could be delivered efficiently. The ideation centered on the main user pain point - difficulty in finding letters, which often resulted in customers reaching out to a banker.
Potential solutions were evaluated through a value-versus-complexity lens, and some were ruled out due to feasibility or cost considerations.
Full-text search in PDFs
Although this would help users unfamiliar with letter names, implementing it required complex backend development.
Instead, a simpler search by title was introduced.
Filtering by financial category
This would require significant internal system modifications, making it too difficult to implement.
Displaying additional dynamic information
Mapping and tagging hundreds of existing and future letters would be impractical.
Solutions Considered (and Rejected)
Final screens
Creating flexible experience within a continuous information flow:
Solving the search problem
A search bar with autocomplete for letter names, helping users who are familiar with the document title find what they need faster
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No More Opening Letters One by One
A carousel-based PDF viewer allows users to visually recognize letters at a glance, enabling quick scanning and navigation without relying on exact document titles.
Filtering by common letter names
Helps users navigate large volumes of messages when they don’t remember the exact document title, reducing friction and enabling faster access to relevant information.
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Solving action control placement issues:
Placed action buttons in a fixed upper section, appearing when at least one letter is selected. This allowed bulk actions on multiple letters simultaneously.
Solving readability issues:
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Page indicator: added a navigation component to help users track their position in multi-page PDFs.
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Pinch-to-zoom support: displayed letters in full-screen mode, with pinch-to-zoom functionality.
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Download files: for seamless opening in dedicated PDF reader apps
