Updates Supported by iOS 10 and Android N

Anticipating the public release of iOS 7 in September and the newly released Android Nougat OS in August, we worked hard as a team to prepare for these releases and the great functionalities they would bring to push notifications.

We spent weeks playing with these new releases in beta mode to understand them from a user's point of view, figuring out how we can provide the best possible experience and enable mobile marketers to take full advantage of these OS releases.

Research and Findings

People tend to be opposed to change, especially when it comes to how their personal devices work and look. Users can be very sensitive to OS updates, when these updates require them to re-learn interactions and features they've already learned. Change can cause frustration for users. The guys at Apple and Google know this very well. Although sometimes at first it may not be 100% obvious why certain updates have been made but they are always conscious, well-thought out design decisions, to provide better mobile experiences for their users. Sometimes it takes some time to get used to these changes and time to understand the benefits they will ultimately bring.

Richer, Actionable Notifications

Since iOS 8 and Android Lollipop, push notifications can have interactive action buttons. These allow users to interact with their notifications directly from their lock screen or home screen, without needing to open the specific app. This made push notifications potentially less interruptive and more efficient for app users, depending on the context of course.

While Android N (Nougat) can display push notifications with an image, iOS 10 has gone beyond this, developing an even richer notification experience with images, gifs, videos or audio.

Jobs to Be Done

So we wanted our platform to reflect these updates. We asked ourselves, what jobs are being solved with this update? We framed this question from the perspective of our own users (mobile marketers when they're using our platform):

• When I'm sending a campaign, I want to be able to send app users interactive notifications, so I can offer them multiple quick actions without opening the app.
• When I'm sending a campaign, I want to be able to send app users notifications with rich content, so I leverage my notifications with engaging content.
• When I'm sending a campaign, I want to re-engage with app users who are slipping away, so I can improve the engagement rate of our app and the happiness of our app users.

Early Sketches

Wireframes

I worked in Balsamiq Mockups to wireframe this feature, collaborated with the team, got feedback, and iterated it until we were happy to bring it into the design stage.

UI Designs