THE ZEALOTS WHO BUILT ALTO
The Zealots Who Built Alto
Oct 21, 2014
In the fall of 2012 AOL launched the private beta of Alto – a re-imagining of the inbox for today’s modern world. This is the behind-the-scenes story of how Alto came to be inside the 25-year-old internet company. It’s far from a rosy picture, but it does hold inspiration and cautionary tales around giving flight to big ideas. How do you take a commodity product like email (whose death is heralded daily in the press) and create something unique and useful? And how do you do all that in the face of so many negative perceptions around the AOL brand? You’ll see how in-home visits inspired Alto’s design, sometimes helped sell the product throughout the organization, and other times were flat out ignored by execs. You’ll see previous iterations, learn why they failed and how they were harvested for the ideas that ultimately created Alto. You’ll hear how a rogue team of long-time mail veterans worked across disciplines and managed to take a risky product to market in the face of internal forces and organizational headwinds – because if we can do it, maybe you can too!
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THE ZEALOTSWHO BUILTALTO
I’mBILL@bwetherell
THIS isA STORY
ABOUT ZEALOTS
A STORYABOUT EMAIL
THIS is
DESPERATE TIMES BREED ZEALOTS
we’re in last
place!
ZEALOTSKNOW THEIR history
@aol.com
@gmail.com
@facebook.com
ZEALOTS NEED ACAUSE
TEXT daily
57 %email daily
91 %
EMAIL IS NOT DEAD
EMAIL HAS CHANGED
free emailSocial notifications
bills Receipts
Daily DEALSREMINDERS
Bottomless storage
LIFE MANAGEMENT+
INBOX FATIGUE
free emailSocial notifications
bills Receipts
Daily DEALSREMINDERS
Bottomless storage+
ZEALOTS TURN weaknessinto strength
YOUR ADDRESSSAYS A LOTABOUT YOU
@gmail.com
@yahoo.com
@hotmail.com
@outlook.com
@aol.com
NO ONE NEEDSANOTHER
EMAIL ADDRESS
ZEALOTS CONVERT OTHERS TO THEIR CAUSE
on the inside EMAIL IS LIKE...
YOU’VE GOTA SUCTION PROBLEM
YOU’VE GOTAN INBOX PROBLEM
YOU’VE GOTAN organization PROBLEM
ZEALOTSBELIEVE
WE BELIEVEORGANIZATION IS
BEAUTIFUL
DEMO
ZEALOTS CONTINUALLY ADJUST TACTICS
WE FAILEDA LOT
FIX
onebox
UPbox
digests
small world
project oh
phoenix
phoenix
WE BUILT ON INCORRECT
ASSUMPTIONS
SO WE WENTOUT INTO
THE REAL WORLD
we saw
7 key things
1.
Email is reallydepressing
2.PEOPLE ASK FORFEATURES THATALREADY EXIST
3.PEOPLE’s inboxes
ARE ENDLESS listsof emails
4.MOST people
DON’T MANAGE THEIR INBOX
CREATE A filterGO TO HELPMISS A MESSAGEDELETE FILTERINBOX GROWSPAN AND SCAN
Familiar?
5.people scroll to find
messages before they search
6.PEOPLE RELY ON WORKAROUNDS
MARK UNREADSTARSLABELSFOLDERS
7.PEOPLE ARE MORE
LIKELY TO BE KEEPERS THAN DELETERS
ZEALOTSNEED TO BEINSPIRED
WE WERE INSPIREDBY SNAIL MAIL
WE WERE INSPIREDBY MY WIFE
STORIES CREATEZEALOTS
ZEALOTS NEED AN IDEOLOGY
We collected our DESIGN principles
AS WE WENT
pass the15-foot test
open spaces
reveal inbox
treasure
tell the storywith motion
ZEALOTS NEED FUNDING
ZEALOTS NEEDA HIDE OUT
OCT 2012PRIVATE BETA
PRESS
Techcrunch:
"As Temkin and Ramirez demonstrated the product, I was less impressed by any one feature and more by the sense that Alto was built up from lots of smart touches. And with a design that’s driven by images and icons rather than row after row of text, it just looks good — as I kept glancing back-and-forth between the demo screen and my own computer, where Gmail was open in the background, I couldn’t help thinking about how cramped Gmail looked in comparison."
- Anthony Ha, Techcrunch
Fast Company:
"AOL is trying again with a platform called Alto, which launched on October 18. But unlike Phoenix, which merely tweaked the email experience, Alto is a complete reimagination of it. And here's a real shocker: AOL produced Alto through the kind of speedy, agile development process you'd associate with a startup, not a $3 billion corporation that defined web 1.0."
"Visually, Alto won't be mistaken for its competition. "We wanted a product that could attract people from across a coffee shop," says Temkin, who relied on design director Bill Wetherell to create a user interface that passed "the 15-foot test.""
- Adam Bluestein, Fast Company Magazine
CNET:
"With Alto, the much-maligned AOL is attempting to give users an entirely new way of organizing their e-mail. It has the potential to make people's inboxes much more useful."
- Daniel Terdiman, CNET
From Fox News:
If you’ve ever missed an email from your sister under that deluge, you’ll find Alto a wonderful answer to the problem.
-Jeremy Kaplan, Fox News
Wired
…timeline-based tools to help you sort through the years and years’ worth of mail you likely have clogging up your mailbox.
-Mat Honan, Wired
PC World
Alto has a clean, well-designed user interface that's fairly intuitive.
-Caitlin McGarry, PC World
Gizmodo
AOL has launched a new cloud-based email client called Alto and it manages to achieve the seemingly impossible: it makes email look kinda... pretty.
Jamie Condliffe, Gizmodo
170 pieces
TWEETS@rajeevnath
Going to make @altomail my primary email client, managing 6 email account simultaneously is a mess.
@pixeldiva
Hello @altomail. Don't let the door hit you on your way out, Google Mail interface.
@danielscenery
@altomail THANK YOU. Alto is the best thing I ever used. Recommending it to everyone
@superpixels
Giving Aol’s @altomail a spin as a Gmail front-end. Really gorgeous UI. Props to the designers!
@MrJamesPorteous
Having to use Apple Mail after @altomail is an awful, awful experience. I mean, Apple Mail's always been bad, but now it's really apparent.
@c_vollmer
Trodde aldrig jag skulle tycka att något från AOL var "fantastiskt". Men Alto Mail är faktiskt just fantastiskt. http://www.altomail.com/
@rchampourlier
Truly innovative email web client: @altomail. Loving the stack concept, that's how I imagined creating filters should be!
@rjzaworski
Never thought I'd say this about mail from AOL, but so far Alto's solid!
@mariolg
Don't count #AOL out. I'm impressed with the interaction of @altomail. True single-page app, smart nav design, UI transitions. Makes sense.
@krisnair
Alto mail by AOL is so awesome and silk smooth.
@emma_park
Just as I forget @AOL even exist, they come out with Alto Mail and it's great. So clean, simple and organised.
@themusing
Beta testing @altomail. Suggested new features, received a personal response thanking me less than an hour later. #takingcareofbusiness
@jenny_wales
Giving AOL's alto a whirl...so far, I like where it's headed. Email has definitely needed this kind of facelift.
@SouthBeachDad
@altomail = #Bliss
@hogatra
Just like to point out that I'm moving into 2013 with my new favourite email client: Alto! Thank-you :) Keep up the hard work!
@valenzine
Hoy llegó mi remera de @altomail. Lo divertido es que dice "ALTO" en el frente. Es decir, es divertido cuando la uso yo.
@LorenMcDonald
Been playing with AOL's new Alto email service - really like it so far; easy to organize emails by type and then view en mass
@Yome_Gui
fait ses premiers pas sur #Alto, la nouvelle application d'AOL et c'est plutôt pas mal pour l'instant !
@_maira_andrea
@altomail best email application!!! :-)
@faction18
Just got my beta invite to AOL Alto. All I can say is WOW. So unbelievably refreshing!
@MatthewKnell
A month into using @altoemail and I've never once gone back to Gmail. It's really that good.
@sovadusyu
Muito, mas MUITO bom esse @AltoEmail. Recomendação do @dinoderpy. Convite pro closed beta chegou em 8 horas.
@LMSandelin
If first impressions count, @AltoEmail, it's love at first sight.
@Ahuri
Très bon #Alto mail de #Aol. Bravo!
7000+ at launch
IT’s OUR JOB TO CREATEZEALOTS
THANKS!SIGN UP AT
altomail.com
Bill Wetherell@bwetherell
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