RYAN GACHET
One of my key accomplishments as Director of User Experience and Research at Twilio was defining and implementing a human-centered Vision and Strategy for the Twilio Console. This initiative established a clear north star for the product experience, aligning cross-functional teams around a unified design direction. The following case study details how this strategy informed a redesigned information architecture and drove measurable improvements in usability, consistency, and the overall Developer Experience at Twilio.
Context
In October 2023, I was brought in to develop and execute a new UX strategy for Twilio’s $4B Communications Business Unit. Earlier that year, Twilio underwent significant organizational and structural changes following company-wide layoffs. As a result, several key factors shaped how the new Vision and Strategy would be defined and implemented.
Key Factors:
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Twilio had shifted into a Business Unit (BU) focused organization with a decentralized UX support model, with BU focused goals and objectives.
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The overall Console Experience was in decline due to disjointed product roadmaps and priorities.
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Twilio had shifted the overall support model from free without exception, to a minimum threshold spend for support (+$75k annual spend).
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Leadership had targeted year-over-year growth goals of 10%, fueling product feature growth and product complexity.
The Problem
By decentralizing the UX organization and aligning it with the Business Units, there was no unifying UX Vision & Strategy to address key product deficiencies.
Declining year-over-year CSAT scores for Twilio's Developer Console experience across all user types from Developers to Non-Developer users.
High-value small to medium Enterprise and Independent Software Vendor customers, no longer had support.
Due to Twilio's growing product complexity, the overall UX Architecture of the Developer Console was insufficient.
Focusing on Data
Leveraging years worth of UX Research, Market data, and Product Analytics I identified Twilio's key opportunities to evolve Twilio's UX strategy.
​Key Data Points Informing the New Vision & Strategy:​
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CSAT score was low with a continued downward trend (42% Satisfied, 3/5), ↓11% from Q2 ‘23, ↓24% from Q3 ‘22 with users noting that Console remains difficult to navigate
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Non-Developers, including leadership roles, struggled with the Console more than Developers exacerbated by a shift in user base away from Developers to non-technical roles (Usability Scores: Devs = 4.1, Non-Devs = 3.3)
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Console stunted the ability to conduct effective Product Led Growth (PLG) motions. 89% of Twilio User Base found it difficult to add more than one channel, product, or feature.
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Currently designed self-service features for Enterprise and Independent Software Vendor (ISV) customers were time consuming and difficult to use. Customers found it difficult to locate key tasks (e.g. avg time to locate Notifications is 47 seconds, ISV Usablity Score 3.1), and ultimately forced these customers to hire and dedicate staff to manage key tasks like Billing, Troubleshooting, etc.
The New Vision & Strategy
The core philosophy of how Twilio interacted with its customers needed to be altered. Twilio need to shift from passive enabler, to focusing on "actively helping" its users. This philosophical change became the core of Twilio's new UX strategy.
Instead of assuming user self-reliance, Twilio needed to, actively and with deep knowledge of the system, help.
A new Information Architecture needed to be implemented, that properly accounted for key administration features (e.g., Setting, Billing), Onboarding and Product Led Growth, and Self-Service features for Non-Developers.
Twilio's Paste Design System, needed to refocus away from individual components, towards reusable and repeatable help systems and patterns.
Bringing it to Life
With full view of the product roadmaps, I identified three active work streams to start implementing and testing the new Vision & Strategy.
Twilio Home
A new Twilio Console feature focused on simplifying the ability to navigate between Accounts and Sub-Accounts for Independent Software Vendor (ISV) customers.
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Messaging Insights
A feature within the Messaging product enabling users to identify and resolve key messaging errors.
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Transformational Customer Experience (TcX)
Focused on reducing support costs by $40M annually by providing AI Assisted support for the Top 10 error driving support tickets.​​
New Product Design Goals
In parternship with Product the overall goals for these three projects were adjusted. Instead of focusing on individual product goals, a unified and complementary set of product goals were established leveraging the new UX Vision & Strategy.
Twilio Home
Fixing known Console Information Architecture will increase Dev and Non-Dev CSAT scores by +30%, and reduce “time to value” by +3 days.
Messaging Insights
Elevating Messaging Insights health features as a global feature will in increase CSAT by +30%, and provide a reusable and predictable pattern for all health-metric data within the Console.
TcX
Creating a holistic AI Assisted help pattern, this will reduce Twilio support expense costs by +$40M annually and drive $+150M in PLG revenue through feature add-ons/cross sell/upsell via self-service methods.
Creating a New Information Architecture
With a unified set of product goals in place, the first step was establishing a rational UX application architecture that could reliably support Twilio's scalable feature sets.
Developing a Universal Help Pattern
Developers and Non-Developers universally wanted to take direct action on insights proactively surfaced to them across channels and products. Instead of having unique experiences for each product, a universal set of help patterns and rules were developed with the express purpose of providing opinionated help for all customers.
Alerts
Alert & Notification framework surfacing only critical/actionable items
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Opinionated Action
Direct navigation to items, with immediately understandable remedy steps​
Assist if Needed
AI Assistant, backstopped by Customer Support Agent​
Upsell/Cross Sell
Upsell/cross sell to prevent future issues or introduce related features
This help pattern, coupled with a standardization of the Messaging Insights reporting system, enabled users to cut through the noise, providing immediate opinionated help.
Outcomes
To successfully implement this first wave of UX Vision & Strategy, I had to collaborate and coordinate between 5 separate Engineering Teams across three Business Units, 3 Product VPs, 6 Product Managers, 8 Product Designers, 2 UX Researchers, and 3 Design System Team Designers.
This required the successful creation of multiple business cases, product one-pagers, and alignment of product delivery roadmaps.
​Business Results
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Increase in Developer CSAT +26%, Non-Developer CSAT +31% for Billing, Account Management, and Error systems
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+$162M in PLG revenue realized in 2024 via cross sell/upsell from new flows
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Increase in ISV CSAT +37% for Billing, Account Management, and Error systems
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+$43M annual expense savings in 2024, with projected savings of +$85M in 2025 as feature expands to Email and Voice channels
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Vision & Strategy Results
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Product UX Architecture, addressing known user pain points
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Global Reporting pattern, addressing known product feature gap
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User validated UX Vision & Strategy