— Research and Discovery

Taking a look at existing email platforms

I started the project by focusing on the analysis of the existing email clients on the market, how they work and what you can learn from them.
I conducted a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats and Opportunities) for Gmail, Apple Mail and Outlook.

A few takeaways that I got after the analysis:

• Gmail excels in search, smart features, and AI-driven email management but struggles with UI clutter.
• Apple Mail is clean and minimal but lacks powerful organization tools.
• Outlook is feature-rich and enterprise-focused, but its UI can feel overwhelming.

After reviewing the SWOT analysis and exploring my own pain points when using the email platforms, I decided to explore Apple Mail further.
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I noticed that Apple Mail has room for improvement regarding email organization.

Areas to improve with Apple Mail

Flag label adjustment is hidden, therefore unused - Users prioritize the ability to personalize the labels to organize their inbox in a more intuitive way. However, Apple Mail’s flag system uses only colors, and it is difficult to rename or categorize them, making it difficult for users to remember what each color means.

Smart Mailboxes don't visually differentiate emails - Smart mailbox is a great feature that gives users power to really customize their inbox. However, incoming emails sorted in smart mailboxes look the same as other emails. This can be improved.

No way to prioritize (really) important emails - Users often lose track of time-sensitive emails because they get buried under new messages. Even though users have the option to put really important emails to a special inbox, it takes effort to remember and retrieve them.

— Ideation

Inspiration

Gmail allows users to easily label their mailboxes, making it easier to have labels that make sense to them.

Apple Mail has its own color coding feature. However, this feature only works for emails that already came into the inboxes, therefore, on its own, the feature doesn't make much sense.

Notes app lets users pin important notes, so these notes will always stay at the top and doesn't get shuffled with other notes.

After brainstorming the pain points, exploring opportunities for improvement, and taking inspiration from other tools, I came up with three solutions. I initially considered a hover-for-quick-action interaction. However, after getting feedback and reconsider that this might cause clutter, accidental clicks and it might get annoying if users don't mean to see those actions after hover. I moved on with different directions.

Here are the three interactions I decided to move forward with:

Custom Flag Labels - Customizable flag labels allow users to assign personalized and meaningful categories for their emails, by making the option to rename flag labels more visible and accessible, we can improve organization and retrieval of important emails.

Color-Coded Smart Mailboxes - By adding the option to color code Smart Mailboxes, we allow users to see these incoming emails more easily since they are clearly differentiated from the rest of the incoming emails.

Right-Click Pinning - A pinning feature that overrides sorting and filtering allows users to keep up to three critical emails at the top of their inbox, ensuring they remain visible and accessible. This will reduce the mental task of remembering to open the mailbox that requires immediate attention when starting a new work session.

— Prototype

Relabeling flags

Pinning emails to the top of the inbox

Visibly color code smart mailbox

— Reflection

This project helped me deeply explore the role of microinteractions in enhancing the user experience of a well-established platform like Apple Mail. What worked well was identifying small but impactful areas of friction, such as the lack of meaning in colored flags or the inability to quickly access high-priority emails, and addressing them through intuitive solutions like relabeling, pinning, and visual categorization.

Prototyping these ideas clarified how minor changes can significantly improve workflow. However, one challenge was balancing innovation with Apple’s existing design language and feature constraints, not every idea felt cohesive or necessary, such as the initial hover-based interaction, which I ultimately dropped.

If I were to continue this project, I’d explore deeper customization options, like intelligent automation of labels or AI-generated suggestions for pins based on urgency. I’d also consider user testing to validate whether these additions truly enhance efficiency for a wide range of users.