Do we have any working theory on why so many companies suck at this? Their job is to communicate an email update. The original actively buries it. Joey's redesign is perfect, but also accessible to mere humans. And yet. Anyway, brillant work Joey, as always. #redesign - ThreadSky

chezvoila.com • 6 days ago

Do we have any working theory on why so many companies suck at this?

Their job is to communicate an email update. The original actively buries it. Joey's redesign is perfect, but also accessible to mere humans. And yet.

Anyway, brillant work Joey, as always. #redesign

Reposted from Joey Cherdarchuk - Obumbratta

Each month I receive this email from TransUnion and each month I have to struggle to determine if everything is okay.
Intentional information design can make it better. #unsolicitedRedesign

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litcritter.bsky.social•6 days ago

Alternate theory: click through rate as a success metric. If they give you the needed info without you clicking, then the campaign gets dinged as a failure.

obumbratta.com•6 days ago

My personal theory is that the people who are made responsible for delivering this function are engineers and the original meets all the requirements of the brief they were given: "Create automated email alert".

obumbratta.com•6 days ago

That's not to put down engineers, they've probably got a million other tasks to deliver. Its that design isn't valued or prioritized by the people at the top.

chezvoila.com•6 days ago

What's crazy is that they could hire you for a few thousands of dollars and get it right. Maybe they don't know this service exists, maybe they don't see the problem. ... or maybe they don't want to get it right??

obumbratta.com•6 days ago

I think "they don't see the problem" is the biggest contributor along with "they don't realize the potential benefits" (not just to their customer but to them in terms of goodwill and word of mouth)

wisevis.com•6 days ago

You can say that they are not competent and wouldn't design it better if they had more time :) We are all not competent at most tasks, even with AI and YouTube videos. As for design, it still means "prettify" for the ones writing the checks (is this expression still valid?)

obumbratta.com•6 days ago

Agreed. Valuing design also means hiring folks with the skills to do it and giving them time and space to deliver their feedback and work.

anthonymoser.com•6 days ago

This is 100% it

lajoiemedia.bsky.social•6 days ago

In my experience, this comes from weird internal dynamics/requirements that are tough to fix. My guess, everyone knows its a problem, but they're using a third-party service not fully integrated with their systems, and have to present a click-through gate rather than surfacing the relevant info.

chezvoila.com•6 days ago

Makes a lot of sense...

lajoiemedia.bsky.social•6 days ago

Here you can see the email came from TransUnion, an aggregator of credit information services, and the service is provided by myTrueIdentity, a separate company whose information TransUnion aggregates.

joshnicholas.com•6 days ago

A lot people at the top either: a) don't actually consume their own product, b) have assistants that file off rough edges, or c) they otherwise get a premium (e.g. ad free) version that isn't broken. Also seems a lot of companies don't see communication with their clients as a core service.

chezvoila.com•6 days ago

💯

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