Boards: one content structure from the app to the chat to the desktop

Rotem Elimelech (Rotem E) led the complete redesign of Boards as a freelance UX and mobile product designer in 2022.

Boards is the app where direct sellers and brand ambassadors find their company’s sales and marketing content and share it while they are talking to a customer: the content is sorted into boards, and a keyboard inside Messenger and other chats brings those boards into the conversation.

When Rotem joined, the product worked and had customers, on iOS, Android and the web, with an interface that had grown dated; he redesigned all of it, side by side with one of the founders, who was the product manager of the redesign.

Everything shown in the Boards case study shipped to the sellers while he was there.

Today Rotem is a freelance product designer (UX/UI) in Tel Aviv, Israel. Boards is the mobile-redesign part of his record: one person responsible for research, product definition, UX and UI on a product that lives inside other people’s chats. This page tells that story in text; the case study shows the screens.

View the Boards case study · About Rotem · Discuss a project

Relevant experience for your project

• A complete redesign of a live product. The mobile app, its Messenger keyboard and the desktop web, redesigned together for sellers who were already using them every day.
• Sales enablement and content libraries. A company’s marketing materials, product content and announcements sorted into boards, findable in seconds and shared in one tap.
• Embedded productivity inside another app. A custom keyboard that lives inside Messenger and other chats, with a keyboard’s space and rules, bringing the content library into the conversation.
• Content discovery UX. Visual content tiles instead of text lists and button grids, plus search with content-type filters, sorting and view options.
• Cross-platform consistency. One board structure on iOS, Android and the desktop web, so a seller relearns nothing between the phone and the computer.
• Onboarding and community for a multi-company platform. Ambassador onboarding with a welcome video and steps, a company feed, profile and announcements, for every direct-sales company on the platform.

Boards at a glance

What Rotem found, and what he built

When Rotem joined in 2022, Boards was a working product with customers: an app, a content keyboard for Messenger and a desktop web, each with an interface that had grown dated. The home screen was a list; a board was a grid of buttons; nothing was findable at a glance. A seller talking to a customer left the conversation to find the right material. And the phone and the desktop looked and worked differently for the same boards.

By the end of the year the product was one system. A main hub where a company’s marketing content is arranged into boards and shared, with visual content tiles. The Messenger keyboard redesigned, in light and dark mode, giving a seller the company’s content mid-conversation. Search with content-type filters and highlighted results, and a filters sheet with view options, sorting and board type. Ambassador onboarding with a welcome video and steps, community management with a company feed, profile and announcements. And the desktop web showing the same boards as the phone.

Rotem’s role

Rotem worked side by side with one of the founders, who was the product manager of the redesign, from research and definition through UX and UI on all three platforms. Four sources fed the definition: the founder’s knowledge of the direct-sales companies and their sellers; the app’s analytics, where sellers went, what they shared and where they dropped; interviews and tests with ambassadors and sellers during the redesign; and the competing and adjacent apps, sales-enablement tools and content apps, studied for what to match and what to skip.

The problem, and the constraints

Three problems, one product. A seller talking to a customer had to leave the chat to find content. The company’s material was buried in text lists and button grids, with nothing recognisable at a glance. And the same boards looked and worked differently on the phone and on the web.

Four constraints shaped the design. The keyboard lives inside someone else’s app, Messenger and other chats, with a keyboard’s space and rules. Three platforms, iOS, Android and web, had to share one board structure. Many companies share one product, each with its own content, brand and community. And the users are sellers, not office workers: people selling from a phone mid-conversation, with seconds to find the thing.

Product decisions

Two decisions Rotem made and would defend today.

1. One board structure everywhere

The decision: Rotem redesigned the content keyboard that brings the library into the conversation, kept the same board-based structure across the app, the keyboard and the desktop product, and gave the three the same visual language.

Why: one shared structure means nothing to relearn between the phone, the chat and the desktop; a seller who learned a board in the app finds it the same way inside Messenger and at the computer. The strongest alternative was to redesign the mobile app and the keyboard and leave the desktop as it was: faster, and the seam between phone and desktop would have stayed.

Tradeoff: three surfaces to keep in step, one of them inside another app. The board is the unit on all three; each surface shows it in the space it has, a keyboard’s strip, a phone screen, a desktop page.

Shown in the case study: Main hub, Mobile keyboard, Web.

2. Visual cards instead of lists and button grids

The decision: the home screen’s list view and the board’s button grid were replaced by visual content tiles a seller recognises at a glance, with search, content-type filters, sorting and view options as the fast path when the tile is not in sight.

Why: a seller has seconds, mid-conversation, to find a piece of content; a thumbnail is recognised faster than a label is read. Restyling the existing lists and grids would have kept the structure that hid the content in the first place.

Tradeoff: tiles take more room than rows, so fewer items fit on a screen. Search and filters carry the long tail, and the same tiles appear in the keyboard, where the space is smallest.

Shown in the case study: Old vs New, Search & Filters, Main hub.

What shipped, and what it did

Everything in the case study shipped on iOS, Android and the web while Rotem was on the project, to sellers across the United States and Europe, for direct-sales companies such as the one whose feed appears in the case study, Natura.

Boards publishes its own figures on its site: more than 3 million users worldwide, more than 3 billion conversations, more than 50 thousand joining monthly, and a 4.8 rating in the app stores (boards.com/brands). They describe the platform’s scale; they are not a measurement of the redesign.

The facts on this page come from Rotem’s own account, the Boards case study and his career timeline. The content inside the screenshots is example material, not results.

Frequently asked questions

What did Rotem Elimelech design for Boards?

The complete redesign of the product in 2022: the mobile app’s main hub with boards and visual content tiles, the Messenger content keyboard in light and dark mode, search with filters and sorting, ambassador onboarding, the company feed, profile and announcements, and the desktop web with the same boards, as a freelance UX and mobile product designer.

Is this case relevant to a sales enablement, content library or keyboard extension product?

Yes. Boards is sales enablement for direct sellers: a company content library sorted into boards, reached from a keyboard inside Messenger and other chats, with the same structure on the phone and the desktop.

Did Rotem design the keyboard himself?

The keyboard existed before the redesign; Rotem redesigned it, in light and dark mode, and gave it the same boards and visual tiles as the app and the web. The app, onboarding, community screens and desktop web are his design as well.

Is Rotem available to redesign a similar mobile product?

Yes, as a freelance product designer, on a retainer or for a defined project: a complete app redesign, a content library or discovery flow, a keyboard or other in-app extension, or the full product from research to UI across iOS, Android and web. Availability and rates are on his profile.

Work with Rotem

For a team building a sales-enablement tool, a content library, a mobile productivity app or a product that lives inside other people’s apps, Rotem brings the whole product process, research, product definition, UX and UI design, and the experience of redesigning a live product on three platforms at once. Availability, rates and how he works are on his profile.

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