- Mobile & Notification Strategy

Problem

Our team focused on building web-parity notification features that mobile users weren’t adopting, resulting in no gains in retention or usage. Without research into mobile behaviors or prioritization around unique mobile needs, the app suffered from low engagement and missed opportunities to drive daily use.

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Task

I recognized the need to shift away from web parity and explore how our mobile apps could deliver unique value. To guide this, I began by analyzing user behavior within the app and set out to answer two key questions:

How can we increase mobile app engagement?
What are the primary use cases for our users in a mobile context?

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Discovery

Analytics: 35% of sessions started from Notification Center, but tap-throughs and retention gains were flat.
User interviews: Mobile was used for urgent, quick actions, not browsing through every alert.
Competitive audit: Leading apps prioritized clarity and urgency, separating “for you” vs. “for others.”
Internal gap: Our roadmap focused on web parity, with little research into mobile-specific workflows.

Key insight: Mobile needed high-value, action-oriented entry points, not more web-style notifications.

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Early Iterations

I sketched several directions:

Notification Center 2.0 – clean UI, filters for relevance.
Your Activity – self-focused tab for direct mentions, replies, approvals.
Updated Navigation – bottom-tab redesign to give Notifications persistent visibility.

"Your Activity" (Notification Center 2.0)

Upgrading the Notification Center to a personalized page, enhancing the experience by:
- Displaying relevant items based on user settings and role
- Including non-notification items of interest
- Using a "productivity" UI pattern

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Updated Home (main menu)

The home section provides:
- A comprehensive view of all messages and items for a selected group
- Versatile inline actions for various user intents
- "Social" UI design encouraging browsing and engagement

Constraints & Trade-offs

Product hesitancy: initial reluctance to prioritize notifications over other mobile features.
Technical limits: syncing push + in-app events required backend updates.
Cross-team alignment: web team prioritized global consistency over mobile-first adaptations.

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To move forward, I reframed proposals into incremental wins:

Quick UI polish on navigation.
Clearer entry point for “Your Activity.”
Phased rollout of Notification Center improvements.
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Initial Outcome

Engagement lift: notification-driven sessions grew X% YoY after nav updates.
Tap-through rate: increased from X% → Y% within 3 months.
DAU contribution: Notification Center became the #2 entry point on mobile, behind Home.
Product shift: leadership acknowledged notifications as a core engagement strategy, paving the way for Notification 2.0.

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Future Directions with Web

With increased confidence in the vision's feasibility, it evolved beyond a simple notification upgrade to include:

New Notification Settings
Mobile & Web Activity center and/or dashboard
Slack integration
Mac OS native app & widgets
Profile status center

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Final Results

Cross-team alignment: As Staff Designer across Mobile and Global, I improved collaboration and presented a new notifications vision to leadership. This led to prioritizing mobile–web sync in the Global zone.
Engineering coordination: Mobile and web engineers are now jointly resolving sync issues and integrating all notifications into a unified global system.
Strategic shift: The Mobile zone has moved away from one-to-one web parity and adopted a notification-first strategy for MVPs — saving significant time and focusing on what matters most to users.
Incremental wins: Alongside this strategy shift, we delivered smaller improvements that reinforced the vision:
- Navigation updates
- Native system upgrades
- Notification Center enhancements

Outcome: Notifications evolved from a parity checklist into a strategic growth driver, shaping how both Mobile and Global teams now approach feature prioritization.