Designing the
Future of Work
Context
Founded in 2019, Almanac's initial product was a repository of open-source document templates. I joined when the company's focus shifted towards building a modern document editor designed for collaboration. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the world's knowledge work professionals to WFH. Working remotely spotlighted the inefficiencies of in-office culture and raised its own set of challenges. Although you could work in your pajamas, you still had to set up a Zoom call for minute discussions, struggle to understand how and why certain decisions were made, and get constantly bombarded by Slack and email notifications.
Almanac.io was built to provide structured, transparent, and async-first collaboration instead of informal, real-time, office-first approaches transplanted to remote contexts. See Almanac's the Modern Work Method for more.
Approach
Tools like Github (for software engineers) and Figma (for designers) already demonstrated the advantages of async-first, collaborative workflows. We applied similar principles to our editor while focusing on crafting UX that felt fast and simple.
From our customer interviews, we learned how people work in terms of the tools they used and the dynamics within their teams. These learnings informed how we built other features like databases for doc management, inbox for task tracking, and wikis for sources of truths. We gathered design feedback frequently by testing our prototypes with a group of dedicated customers.
During the 3 years at Almanac, I touched almost all areas of the product, while being the dedicated designer for the database and wiki features.
Doc Editor
for writing and reviewing
Database
for planning and tracking
Wiki
for source of truth
Along with crafting an effortless writing experience with all of the expected formatting functions, we designed an editor focused around collaboration.
Github allows code to be branched, edited, and then merged into the main code later through a review process. Similarly, our editor enables users create instances of the doc (called layers) to be edited and reviewed in isolation, granting better version control and transparency on how certain changes were made.
The primary CTA button is "Start Review" by default, but dynamically changes depending on the role of the user (Reviewer, Approver, Viewer) and the status of the document (In-Review, Sent back, Approved, etc).
Editor version control
Track changes and merge with layers
I spearheaded the designs for file-management within Almanac. The left navigation panel was designed to be customizable at a workspace-level so that admins could control how the files appeared for all of their members. We incorporated various views (list, table, kanban boards, gallery) for the folder to cover various use cases.
Database
Manage files
We built a publishing feature that allows dispersed docs or a folder of docs to be converted into a wiki for distribution. The wiki allows users to create a source of truth, like a company handbook, to be shared internally or published to the web.
Wiki themes
Process
Cadence
As a startup establishing market fit, the team released features quickly and often with the intent of collecting customer feedback ASAP. I was the dedicated designer for the Organize pod, working day-to-day basis with 3-5 engineers in 2-week cycles to release sets of features and improvements.
I was in charge of defining design requirements with the Product team (setting expectations and priorities), producing wireframes and prototypes, conducting usability tests with customers, handing off designs to the Engineering team, and overseeing design QA.
Design System
Good governance of our design system was essential for maintaining a cohesive look and feel for Almanac. As the platform added more feature sets with the goal of becoming a all-in-one work tool, our components and styles continuously evolved and expanded.
After a couple of beta launches for fine-tuning, Almanac launched to the public at the start of 2022.
Other Works
