# 03 โ€” User Research: Personas & Journey Maps (Phase 3) Personas are prioritised against the [Design Brief](00-design-brief.md) audience: **mainstream, power-capable.** So the **primary** personas are everyday individuals and small-business owners; **secondary** personas are high-volume role users whose needs we support *progressively* (power features revealed as people grow into them). Legend: ๐ŸŸข primary ยท ๐Ÿ”ต secondary --- ## ๐ŸŸข Priya โ€” Personal user (mainstream) Busy professional with a personal Gmail full of subscriptions, receipts, travel, and the occasional important thread buried in noise. - **Goals:** find things fast; not miss the important stuff; keep the inbox from feeling overwhelming. - **Pain points:** can't remember where things are; newsletters bury real mail; unsubscribing is tedious; search needs the "right words." - **Daily workflow:** skim inbox on phone/desktop โ†’ star/leave a few โ†’ hunt for a receipt or booking โ†’ ignore the rest. - **Search needs:** *natural, forgiving* ("flight to Lisbon", "gym receipt March") โ€” no operators. Attachment/receipt finding. Typo tolerance. - **AI opportunities:** thread summaries, "what needs a reply," smart unsubscribe suggestions, receipt/booking extraction, gentle priority. ## ๐ŸŸข Marcus โ€” Business owner / solopreneur (mainstream, high-value) Runs a small business from one inbox: clients, vendors, invoices, admin โ€” **no assistant**. - **Goals:** never drop a client ball; find any past agreement/invoice instantly; spend less time in email. - **Pain points:** follow-ups slip; important buried under admin; digging for "what did we agree?"; context-switching. - **Daily workflow:** triage first thing โ†’ reply to clients โ†’ chase unpaid invoices โ†’ search for prior context mid-reply. - **Search needs:** people-centric ("everything with this client"), attachment/invoice search, timeline ("our thread about the contract"), "did they reply?" - **AI opportunities:** follow-up detection, "you haven't heard back" nudges, thread/relationship summaries, task/commitment extraction, draft replies with context. ## ๐Ÿ”ต Dev โ€” Developer / power user Technical inbox: GitHub, CI alerts, monitoring, mailing lists, plus real mail. - **Goals:** cut notification noise; automate; keep signal. **Strongly values local/private AI** and self-hostable. - **Pain points:** alert floods; wants rules/automation and keyboard speed; distrusts cloud AI on their mail. - **Daily workflow:** bulk-archive alerts โ†’ scan PR/issue threads โ†’ deep-search history โ†’ automate the repetitive. - **Search needs:** operators + regex-ish precision, entity/sender/domain, saved searches, fast keyboard-driven search. - **AI opportunities:** local summarisation of long threads, auto-labelling/rules suggestions, semantic search across archives, duplicate/near-duplicate detection. ## ๐Ÿ”ต Rina โ€” Recruiter (role power user, high volume) Hundreds of candidate threads, CV attachments, scheduling, multi-stage follow-ups. - **Goals:** find any candidate/CV instantly; track stage; never lose a promising lead. - **Pain points:** attachments scattered; who's at what stage; follow-up timing; duplicate applicants. - **Search needs:** **attachment/document search** (search *inside* CVs), people search, stage/timeline, entity extraction (skills, roles). - **AI opportunities:** CV/document understanding, candidate summaries, follow-up detection, duplicate detection, relationship mapping. ## ๐Ÿ”ต Sam โ€” Sales ยท ๐Ÿ”ต Tom โ€” Support (role power users) - **Sam:** pipeline follow-ups, response tracking, templates. Needs "who hasn't replied," saved searches, sentiment, reply suggestions. - **Tom:** triage by category/SLA, canned responses, categorisation accuracy. Needs reliable auto-categorisation, priority prediction, phishing/spam confidence, thread summaries. - (Both hint at **collaboration/shared-inbox** โ€” deliberately a *later* opportunity; individual mainstream user is primary.) --- ## Cross-persona signal | Need | Who feels it most | Priority | |------|-------------------|----------| | **Forgiving, natural search** | Priya, Marcus (everyone) | ๐Ÿ”ด Highest | | **Find people / attachments / past context** | Marcus, Rina, Dev | ๐Ÿ”ด High | | **Follow-up / "did they reply?" detection** | Marcus, Sam, Rina | ๐Ÿ”ด High | | **Thread & relationship summaries** | Marcus, Dev, Rina | ๐ŸŸ  Medium-high | | **Noise reduction (unsubscribe, bulk, categorise)** | Priya, Dev, Tom | ๐ŸŸ  Medium-high | | **Local/private AI** | Dev (loud), all (latent) | ๐Ÿ”ด Strategic | | **Explainability of results/priority** | everyone (trust) | ๐ŸŸ  Medium-high | | Collaboration / shared inbox | Sam, Tom | ๐ŸŸข Later | --- ## Journey maps Format: **stage โ†’ what they do โ†’ current pain โ†’ InboxIntel opportunity.** ### J1 โ€” Morning triage ("what needs *me* today?") โ€” Priya, Marcus | Stage | Action | Current pain | Opportunity | |-------|--------|--------------|-------------| | Arrive | Open inbox | Wall of mixed noise + important | AI **priority lane** + summary of "needs you" (local, explainable) | | Scan | Skim subjects | No signal of what's urgent/awaiting reply | **Follow-up/awaiting-reply** badges; thread one-liners | | Act | Reply/defer/clean | Repetitive, context-switch heavy | One-click defer/snooze; context-aware **draft reply**; bulk clean noise | | Exit | Close, hope nothing missed | Anxiety of missed items | "You're caught up on what matters" confidence state | ### J2 โ€” Find one specific thing (the flagship moment) โ€” everyone | Stage | Action | Current pain | Opportunity | |-------|--------|--------------|-------------| | Recall | Remember fragments ("invoice, that vendor, spring") | Must guess exact keywords/operators | **Natural-language + semantic** search; typo-tolerant | | Query | Type in search | Syntax anxiety; blank box | **Suggestions, recent, filter chips**; search-as-home | | Scan results | Look through hits | Date-sorted, not relevant; no context | **Relevance ranking** + **"why this matched"** + instant preview | | Confirm | Open the right one | Re-open several to be sure | Grouped results, inline preview, people/attachment facets | ### J3 โ€” Reduce the noise โ€” Priya, Dev, Tom | Stage | Action | Current pain | Opportunity | |-------|--------|--------------|-------------| | Notice | "Too many newsletters" | Unsub links hidden/dark-patterned | **One-click unsubscribe** (already seeded) + AI suggestions of what to cut | | Decide | Which to keep? | Manual, per-email | AI **bulk suggestions** by sender/category with confidence + preview | | Act | Unsubscribe / bulk clean | Risky, irreversible-feeling | **Confirmed + previewed** bulk actions (already a strength) | | Trust | Did it do the right thing? | Opaque | Explainable "why suggested," undo, audit | ### J4 โ€” Track a commitment / follow-up โ€” Marcus, Sam, Rina | Stage | Action | Current pain | Opportunity | |-------|--------|--------------|-------------| | Send | Email a client/candidate | Then forget | AI **follow-up detection**: "expecting a reply?" | | Wait | Time passes | No system nudges you | "**No reply in N days**" surfaced automatically | | Recall | "What did we agree?" | Dig through thread | Thread **summary + extracted commitments/tasks** | | Resolve | Chase / close | Re-draft from scratch | Context-aware **draft nudge** referencing the thread | --- ## Research-driven product principles 1. **Search is the front door**, and it must work for someone who types *"that gym receipt"* โ€” not just `from:gym has:attachment`. 2. **Explain everything** the system decides (match, category, priority) โ€” it builds trust and teaches the app. 3. **AI removes toil, never control** โ€” advisory, previewed, undoable, and fully optional/local. 4. **Progressive power** โ€” mainstream-simple by default; operators, saved searches, automation revealed as users grow. 5. **Reduce anxiety** โ€” "you're caught up," undo, and confidence states matter as much as features.