Amplitude Cross-Product Notifications
Re-platforming a fundamental notification system to unite Amplitude’s suite of products
Timeframe
Jan - Sep 2022
Role
Product Designer, UX Researcher, UX Strategist
Process
Stakeholder interviews, brainstorming, storyboarding, prototyping
Context
My Role & Approach
In Q3 2022, Amplitude began unifying the experience across its products (Analytics, Experiment, Audiences, and Data). As a designer for the Collaboration pillar, our vision was to be “the wrapper around our product,” focusing on how users work together across Amplitude’s ecosystem.
Through stakeholder interviews with cross-pillar product teams, we identified a critical pain point: workflow handoffs between different user personas and products were fragmented. For example, an analyst flagging an incorrect data stream in Analytics had no seamless way to notify an engineer in Data, creating inefficiencies and gaps in communication.
Compounding this issue, our notification system was outdated, inconsistent, and product-specific—Analytics had in-app, email, and Slack notifications, while Experiment, Audiences, and Data relied solely on email (which had a 9.6% open rate and only 0.5% return engagement). During interviews, users commonly said: “We don’t use email.”
Our goal was clear: build a modern, scalable notification platform that connected users to critical updates via channels they actually used.
As the UX lead, I:
Drove alignment across multiple product teams to define a cohesive cross-product notification strategy
Evaluated available technical solutions, partnering closely with engineering to determine build vs. buy tradeoffs
Advocated for user and internal stakeholder needs, ensuring our approach prioritized relevance, timeliness, and seamless internal workflow integration.
Outcome
After deliberating with engineering, we decided to go with Knock, a third-party API tool, accelerating our timeline by at least 2 years. Rather than building on top of an inflexible system or building something from scratch, this decision allowed us to:
Standardize notifications across all Amplitude products and channels
Expand beyond email to channels users actually engage with, improving visibility
Ensure a consistent user experience throughout our entire site and throughout all communication channels
By the time I left Amplitude, the V1 Alpha was live, and the team was driving organization-wide collaboration to deliver the seamless, user-centric notifications our customers had been waiting for.
