The Zealots Who Built Alto
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 Zealots Who Built Alto
- 4. THIS is A STORY ABOUT ZEALOTS
- 5. THIS is A STORY ABOUT EMAIL
- 7. we’re in last place!
- 9. @aol.com
- 11. @gmail.com
- 12. @facebook.com
- 14. 91 % 57 % email daily TEXT daily
- 15. EMAIL IS NOT DEAD
- 17. free email Social notifications bills Receipts Daily DEALS + REMINDERS Bottomless storage LIFE MANAGEMENT
- 18. free email Social notifications bills Receipts Daily DEALS + REMINDERS Bottomless storage INBOX FATIGUE
- 20. YOUR ADDRESS SAYS A LOT ABOUT YOU
- 21. @gmail.com
- 22. @yahoo.com
- 23. @hotmail.com
- 24. @outlook.com
- 25. @aol.com
- 26. NO ONE NEEDS ANOTHER EMAIL ADDRESS
- 27. ZEALOTS CONVERT OTHERS TO THEIR CAUSE
- 28. on the inside EMAIL IS LIKE...
- 32. YOU’VE GOT A SUCTION PROBLEM
- 33. YOU’VE GOT AN INBOX PROBLEM
- 35. ZEALOTS BELIEVE
- 36. WE BELIEVE ORGANIZATION IS BEAUTIFUL
- 37. DEMO
- 40. WE FAILED A LOT
- 41. FIX onebox
- 42. UPbox
- 43. digests
- 44. small world
- 45. project oh
- 46. phoenix
- 47. phoenix
- 48. WE BUILT ON INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS
- 49. SO WE WENT OUT INTO THE REAL WORLD
- 50. we saw 7 key things
- 51. 1. Email is really depressing
- 52. 2. PEOPLE ASK FOR FEATURES THAT ALREADY EXIST
- 53. 3. PEOPLE’s inboxes ARE ENDLESS lists of emails
- 54. 4. MOST people DON’T MANAGE THEIR INBOX
- 55. Familiar? CREATE A filter GO TO HELP MISS A MESSAGE DELETE FILTER INBOX GROWS PAN AND SCAN
- 56. 5. people scroll to find messages before they search
- 57. 6. PEOPLE RELY ON WORKAROUNDS
- 59. 7. PEOPLE ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE KEEPERS THAN DELETERS
- 61. WE WERE INSPIRED BY SNAIL MAIL
- 62. WE WERE INSPIRED BY MY WIFE
- 72. We collected our DESIGN principles AS WE WENT
- 74. open spaces
- 75. reveal inbox treasure
- 82. 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 PRESS 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 170 pieces 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
- 83. @rajeevnath Going to make @altomail my primary email client, managing 6 email account simultaneously is a mess. TWEETS @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 7000+ at launch @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
- 85. IT’s OUR JOB TO CREATE ZEALOTS
- 86. THANKS! SIGN UP AT altomail.com Bill Wetherell @bwetherell