SnapEngage powered live chat for 60 million conversations in 87 countries. Their core product was showing its age. I was tasked to lead a complete rethink. What came out of it was a redesigned chat console and a methodology I’ve used on every major UX product engagement since.
01
The Problem
The tool 21,000 agents used every day was showing its age.
SnapEngage had design debt, tech debt, and a growing stack of user feedback all pointing at the same problem: the chat console was inefficient. It was becoming a liability as the company pushed into enterprise. The underlying front-end technology was so dated that adding features had become slow and expensive. And the agents who lived in this console all day were not happy.
It was time for a major overhaul.
Legacy Chat Console UI
Mind Map
Participant Sketches
02
The Design Burst
A week-long design sprint condensed into one day.
I adapted the Google Ventures Design Sprint for organizations that can’t lock executives in a room for a week. My design “Burst” compresses the first three days into a single structured session from goal-setting to concept selection, done and done.
01
Define
Long-term goal, challenge mapping, and a user journey from login to resolution.
02
Diverge
“How Might We” notes, competitor review, and selecting a design target. And free pizza for the team.
03
Converge
Crazy-8s sketching, sticky dot voting, and storyboarding the winning concept resulted in rapid convergence on the winning concept and stakeholder alignment.
User Flow // Storyboard
03
The Design
From the winning sketch to a pixel-perfect mockup.
With a clear direction chosen, the design work began. Sketches were refined into a clean wireframe. The wireframe became high-fidelity mockups ready for prototyping.
I also led a brand refresh alongside the console redesign, bringing updated colors to the UI.
Wireframe to High Fidelity Design and Prototype
“Jackson is a strategic thinker who seeks to understand the ‘WHY’ behind any design decision. From market research and ideation to customer interviews and UX/UI development, he understands how product pieces connect and the importance of every milestone along the way.”
Outdated UI → Microburst → New Experience
Customer Service Agents using the new Live Chat Console
04
The Launch
Built right. Launched clean.
With validated designs in hand, engineering had a clear brief.
All the up-front work on design and validation reduced engineering waste, giving them focus to build the right thing.
And throughout development, I was involved in validating work, ensuring that the team could build the thing right.
The beta launched alongside the old interface, giving users a choice and a way to share feedback.
My Design Burst worked and the product shipped to great fanfare. The methodology I developed on this project is now core to how I approach every product engagement.
Beta Launch Experience
SnapEngage Chat UI on Mobile
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Jackson Carson, President
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