For years, Dropbox has been known as the go-to place to store and share files. Over 600 million people depend on Dropbox for their most important files. But now, this market is flooded with competitors. Big players like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have entered the scene, offering similar features for little to no cost. So why should anyone stick with Dropbox?
To tackle this problem, one approach was to branch out into adjacent markets. We wanted to see if we could create a project management tool—built on top of Dropbox. A lot of people already keep their project files in Dropbox. What if we created a space where teams can collaborate on those files without having to leave Dropbox? We called this tool Dropbox Spaces.
In mid-2020, I got tapped to work on Dropbox Spaces with an all-new team. We split up into different squads to focus on specific parts of the experience. I joined the Plan squad, whose goal was to build project planning features in Spaces. Below are the folks on the Plan squad who worked closely with me.
Over the years, our Research team had done a number of studies on project planning. So by the time our new team formed, we already had a wealth of research at our fingertips. For example, from past studies, we knew that "Managing your tasks for a project" was the most common activity for project planning. This was one of the reasons why tasks was among the first things we decided to build.
Now that we were set on building tasks, we needed to figure out what people could do with those tasks. To help us generate ideas, my colleague Walter organized a brainstorm using InVision Freehand. Together, we came up with dozens of ideas for creating tasks, collaborating on tasks, and organizing tasks.
One of the earliest questions we wanted to answer was: How should tasks be organized on the page? This decision would have a big impact on how tasks are displayed, so we wanted to make sure we got this right.
To help inform our direction, I did user testing with our target audience. I showed participants 4 low-fidelity options for organizing tasks (shown below). Based on these interviews and other research we had, we concluded that table view was the most flexible and familiar. People liked the table view for its ability to sort, filter, and prioritize tasks. So that's the view we decided to start designing.
Over the next few weeks, I explored and tested a wide range of ideas for our MVP. In total, I created 100+ mocks and 15+ prototypes for this project. The UI interactions were pretty intricate because each task row had 8 interactive components in it. Within a single task row, you can mark it complete, drag to reorder it, inline edit it, add attachments, and more. Below are some of the explorations I created during this phase.
An early mock of table view. This would eventually evolve into list view.
An early mock of board view. We eventually ditched this direction in favor of calendar view.
An early version of calendar view, which performed well in user testing—so well that we included this view in our MVP.
An early version of the task details pane.
From a Principle prototype I made to illustrate scrolling in the sidebar.
From a Principle prototype I made to illustrate manual and column sorting.
After working with PM and Eng to decide on scope, it was finally time to create the design spec and finalize the designs. We had 3 designers, so we divided up the work by key components. Within a few weeks, I designed the following components for tasks:
Below are some of my final designs for our MVP. Everything shown below was implemented and shipped on time.
This was the default list view for tasks. It's essentially a table—but without vertical column lines for a cleaner look.
In calendar view, you can toggle between a week or month view. You can also drag tasks from one date to another to change the due date.
This is the details pane that shows task notes, attachments, and comments.
To assign tasks, you click "Assign to" to open up a people picker. Assignees get an email notification when they get a task.
In addition to email, assignees would also get task notifications via our desktop app and web app.
One of the error states in case something went wrong. The illustration was made by our Brand team.
I organized a "Make work human" hack day for our team and this is one of the fun easter eggs we built that day.
In Q4 2020, we shipped Dropbox Spaces to a limited beta audience. Our main goal for this release was to learn whether the product was compelling for teams who use Dropbox. One of the things we learned was that people loved the tasks feature. Below are some glowing comments we received about tasks in Dropbox Spaces.
I absolutely love the task section!
Tasks is one of my favorite parts of Dropbox Spaces. I just love how we can put our tasks in there, how it can be sorted, and how it can show whether it's active and completed.
I really liked the fact that you can view this as a list but you can also view it as a calendar—and then you can also see it as a monthly view or as a week view.
My favorite thing so far is [tasks] because we normally use sticky notes or we send ourselves emails to remind us things that we need to do. But with this, we can pick who the task is assigned to and then they get an email right away. [Tasks] is absolutely amazing.
I really like the tasks… It's easy to know what I have going on, what's coming up, and then when it's achieved. It's wonderful.
Despite people enjoying the tasks feature in our beta, Dropbox Spaces was still far from finished. Over the next few months, the product would evolve several times, and as of early Q2 2021, Spaces is still in a limited beta. Even though we haven't crossed the finish line yet, I learned a ton during this journey. Below are some of my top takeaways.
Based on my user interviews, it became clear that people tend to gravitate towards concepts that feel familiar to them. For example, when testing a board view for tasks, the only people who expressed interest in it were people who had used board-like tools in the past, like Trello. For early stage products, it's best to start with concepts that feel familiar.
Most people tend to ditch new products after the first day, so it's important to get them to see the value of your product as quickly as possible. Even though Spaces did a lot of cool things, most people never discovered those features because they didn't stick around long enough. To help people fall in love with your product, it's crucial to introduce that "aha" moment early on.
Despite having some amazing engineers, our product was packed with bugs in its early days. Things would sometimes work one day then suddenly stop working the next. Because of this, I got into a habit of playing around with our product regularly to maintain our quality bar. I ended up catching 100+ bugs in a few months, helping to give this feature a polished feel.