Company
Date Published
Author
Michelle Fitzpatrick
Word count
1461
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

The design team at Intercom aimed to create a feature called Inbox Insights, which would provide support teams with valuable data and insights to help them manage their workload more effectively. The goal was not just to collect analytics but to deliver actionable insights that would enable teams to make informed decisions about their resource allocation, hiring, and staffing. By applying the Jobs-to-be-Done theory, the team identified key job stories that customers wanted to achieve with the feature, such as understanding their support workload, identifying busy periods, and determining the performance of individual team members. The design process involved starting with a clear project brief, defining a single-page Intermission that outlined the problem and opportunity, and then designing solutions that addressed the most pressing needs of the users. Through a series of review sessions and feedback loops, the feature was iteratively refined to ensure it met the job stories and provided real value to customers. The resulting Inbox Insights feature offers two main sections: "How Busy Are We" and "How Busy Is My Team?", providing easy-to-understand bar charts, graphs, and summaries that help teams make data-driven decisions about their workload and resource allocation.