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Design Brief - Add Attachments to Emails as Individual Uncompressed Files

Project Introduction

This project will introduce a feature allowing users to send multiple email attachments as individual files instead of as a single, compressed .zip file. The goal is to solve a critical delivery issue for our customers whose recipients work in organizations with security policies that block zipped attachments.

This initiative is a direct response to customer feedback and support ticket analysis. By addressing this, we aim to improve the reliability of our document delivery system, enhance user satisfaction by providing much-needed flexibility, and reduce the operational load on our support team. This feature will bring our application's email functionality in line with standard business communication tools, ensuring we meet customer expectations.

Users and Needs

The primary user is an Operations Coordinator or Accounts Receivable Clerk. They are responsible for sending time-sensitive business documents, such as invoices and reports, from our application. Their workflow is fast-paced, and they rely on our tool to be efficient and, most importantly, reliable.

Their core need is to ensure that the documents they send are successfully received without being blocked. When a recipient's IT policy interferes with this, it breaks their workflow and requires time-consuming manual workarounds. Users will use this new feature to bypass these filters; by simply un-checking a box, they can send attachments as individual files, thus meeting their goal of successful and efficient document delivery.

Secondary stakeholders include:

  • The End Recipient: Needs to receive documents cleanly and accessibly.

  • Internal Support Team: Needs to reduce the number of tickets related to this issue.

  • Recipient's IT/Security Department: Enforces the security policies that create this constraint.

Tasks

The primary actions a user should be able to accomplish are:

  • Select an option in the global settings to send email attachments uncompressed..

  • View a clear and intuitive option on the global settings screen to control file compression (e.g., a checkbox labeled "Send email attachments as individual files").

  • Disable the file compression option when this option is enabled.

  • Send the email, which will deliver the attachments as individual, uncompressed files.

Timeline and Deliverables

This project is currently in the discovery phase, which will be followed by design and development.

Discovery & Validation Phase (July 8, 2025 – August 19, 2025)

  • Deliverable (by July 22, 2025): A summary of user interviews confirming the problem scope and impact.

  • Deliverable (by August 5, 2025): Low-fidelity mockups of the proposed UI and a report of usability testing results.

  • Deliverable (by August 12, 2025): A technical spike report detailing any email server limitations regarding attachment size and count.

Future Phases (Hypothetical)

  • Design & Development (Late Q3 2025): High-fidelity designs and development of the front-end component and back-end logic.

  • Testing & Release (Early Q4 2025): Quality assurance testing and a phased rollout to customers.