Emotional Engagement
Design Direction at Omnisend
General context
Omnisend is an email marketing tool for ecommerce. Instead of out-featuring its main competitor, Klaviyo, it aims to win by being easier, simpler and nicer to use.
Emotional Engagement was the design direction behind that goal: a UX and UI revamp to make marketers feel confident, guided and supported, through color, interaction, feedback and tone of voice. Inspired by Material’s Expressive Design research and Hitachi’s 1995 study, it sparked the projects below, shipped in three stages.
It was Omnisend’s first design-led initiative of this scale. Beyond the design work, I had to win over leadership, build the team and measure success, mainly through user sentiment.
Company
Year
My role
Omnisend
2025-2026
Led the initiative end to end: spotted the opportunity, built the team, set the design direction, led 8 designers and ran research through launch.
“Emotions are not the icing on the cake. They’re the flavor of the cake.”
Dom Norman, Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
Expressive design is the intentional use of visuals, language, and microinteractions to elicit the right emotional response at the right moment. It is not a feature. It is not branding. It is a system for emotional resonance built into the product experience. When done well, expressive design delivers:
Clarity: The user knows what just happened and what will happen next.
Confidence: The interface affirms their actions, guiding them calmly.
Connection: The product feels like a partner, not a tool.
Phase 1: A facelift
Purpose & Idea
I started by partnering with marketing to make the product feel as bold and polished as the brand. I led a complete rebuild of the design system, making it more functional, more attractive and built for how marketers work today. Every decision was grounded in evidence: I analyzed past user behavior, mapped the competitive landscape and benchmarked against both the visual and functional standards of industry leaders. That work shaped the first step: a full facelift of the product.
Before
After
Addition of brand illustrations/mascot ➂
I led the introduction of brand illustrations and Omni, our new mascot, to give the product a personality of its own. Omni appears at key moments, such as onboarding, empty states, successes and errors, guiding marketers and celebrating their wins. It turned the product from a tool into a companion and made Omnisend instantly more recognizable and memorable.
Design system change ➁
I led a complete update of the design system, and the biggest goal was simple: make the product feel alive. I brought in richer color, expressive motion, responsive feedback and a warmer tone of voice, so every interaction felt more engaging and human. Underneath, the system was standardized for consistency and scale, giving the whole product a solid foundation to build that new energy on.
Navigation change ➀
I led a complete overhaul of the navigation, improving information architecture, hierarchy, accessibility and learnability for ecommerce merchants. Because this was such a big UX change, I monitored its impact closely, both quantitatively (an A/B test on behavioral data, path efficiency, support signals and a CES survey) and qualitatively (moderated usability sessions).
Results
~2x faster
In user testing, new users found Omnisend’s core features, creating a campaign and building an automation, twice as fast after the facelift.
More desirable
In a survey, the facelifted designs scored significantly higher on desirability traits like ‘friendly’ and ‘playful.’
Phase 2: A two-way relationship
Purpose & Idea
This phase focused on using design language to make users feel reassured, supported and celebrated in their everyday work in Omnisend. I led an in-depth analysis of two kinds of moments: those most tied to retention, and those where users needed the most hand-holding, often reaching out to support just for confirmation that they were doing things right.
Empty states ➁
Blank screens became helpful starting points. Instead of leaving new users wondering what to do next, each empty state now explains what belongs there, why it matters and how to get started, with a clear next step and a friendly touch from Omni. What used to be a dead end became a guided first step.
Success & loading states ➀
I led the redesign of success and loading states, turning moments that used to feel empty or uncertain into small moments of reassurance and celebration. Loading states now keep users informed and confident that things are working, while success states celebrate milestones like a sent campaign or a launched automation, often with Omni joining in. These touches answer the “Did it work?” question before users ever need to ask support.
Results
9 to 10
When asked how enjoyable and satisfying the new experience was, 25 of 28 participants gave it a 9 or 10 out of 10. Users also expressed strong confidence during setup, along with a noticeably greater sense of achievement and motivation as they worked.
"It felt smooth. <...> I felt a weird sense of accomplishment that I finished something, like a fulfilment, that it's complete, definitely. <...> So I was also quite emotionally stimulated, overall it was very good experience, I didn’t need to second guess or think if it launched. It felt fast. It didn't feel too long, because I don't want the confirmation message to feel that."
Thanos Antoniou, Omnisend user
Phase 3: Delight & personalization
Purpose & Idea
This phase focused on making Omnisend feel personal, shaped around each user’s preferences and needs. The work brought more personalization options, better readability, and a more responsive, interactive experience throughout the product.
Expressive analytics ➁
Analytics is where Omnisend proves its worth. It’s where marketers see the results of their work: subscribers growing, engagement rising, revenue climbing. Yet a wall of flat numbers hides the story behind them. The redesign made analytics visual and easy to explore, adding subtle interactions and trend indicators that draw attention to what’s changing and invite users to dig deeper. Instead of just reporting results, analytics now celebrates progress and makes growth something users can feel, turning a reporting screen into a daily reason to come back.
Dark mode ➀
Themes have moved well beyond accessibility. They’re a way for people to make a product truly their own, and a space shaped to their liking is one they return to and feel connected to, which is exactly what Emotional Engagement set out to build. Dark mode had also become the everyday standard across the apps marketers already use, and for people spending long hours building campaigns and analyzing results, it means more comfort and less strain. Leaving it out would have made Omnisend feel behind; adding it made the product feel modern, personal and built around its users.
Results
43%
43% of users now use dark mode daily, rising to around 60% among users who joined in the last month.
from 7 to 9
After the expressive redesign, average satisfaction with analytics jumped from 7 to 9 out of 10, a 29% increase across 50 surveyed users.
What began as a design direction became the heart of how Omnisend looks, feels and speaks.
Emotional Engagement didn’t transform Omnisend overnight. It happened one small detail at a time: a friendlier message, a smoother moment, a reason to smile. Slowly, the whole product began to feel different: warmer, more confident and more human. It also gave the company something it had never had before: a shared vision we still follow today.
To see the difference, just look at where we started:
