Sarah LudlowLetting business teams manage customer letters without waiting on engineering
The Letter Management System is a new enterprise correspondence platform. I led UX and UI design from first concept through its first phased rollouts, with accessibility as the starting point.
The problem
Sending a customer letter meant moving through several disconnected tools: one to build templates, another to manage and send what was published, and a technical layer underneath that made templates possible.
Work was handed between them by hand, so it was easy to lose or mix up. Business teams also depended on technical staff to change a template, which slowed every update and made letters inconsistent.
Simplified concept diagram, redrawn for this page. It does not show real screens.
Who I designed for
About five user types across different lines of business, including letter editors and publishers. Their needs didn't all make it into the first set of requirements, so I built a feedback loop to keep finding the rest.
Key design decisions
Combine three tools into one platform
I made the case for merging template building, publishing and the technical foundations into a single product, so a letter no longer had to cross systems to get from draft to sent.
Make status obvious for every role
Each role lands in a workspace that shows the information it needs, and every piece of work shows where it stands, so nobody hunts for what's next.
Keep people in context
A user can open an item and edit, test and publish it in the same place. Quick actions use modals, which cut steps and make it easy to back out without losing your place.
Accessibility first
Designed for people with disabilities, so it works better for everyone.
We began with a strict 508 compliance lens, not a late-stage check. That led to harder conversations with developers and sometimes stakeholders, who didn't always see why certain choices were made. I kept those conversations grounded in who the product was for.
Leading the work
I worked with 40+ people across development, product management and requirements analysis, alongside two other lead designers.
I ran my own working session every week, sometimes twice, where I took pushback on design ideas and kept both the business needs and accessibility in the conversation.
I also mentored a newer designer on our design patterns and standards, and taught her Figma.
Outcome
After about a year of design and work on the first two phases, the Letter Management System began rolling out in phases. By bringing scattered processes into one platform, business teams could manage letters more independently, with less reliance on technical staff.
What I learned
To lead discussions with patience and welcome opinions that contradicted mine.
Working this closely with developers taught me how much development shapes what's possible in design, and how much better the design gets when you understand it.
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