Directory

Design Lead for the Directory feature update to the Apple Business native app, allowing employees to find and connect with colleagues.

Profile view within the iOS app.

Apple Business Essentials is a free app to get everything you need from your company, as an employee, all in one place. When you sign in to your Managed Apple Account, the app is automatically installed.

iOS 17 included a bold refresh to the Apple Contacts app. My aspiration was to apply that visual impact to the context of a company directory. This included full bleed photos known as contact posters, pronouns customization, and preferred name.

Employee profile before and after a photo is uploaded.

Working with my design team, we developed a layered way to render the profile view once a provided photo is uploaded by the admin of business.

Once aligned on the general layout of a profile and rendering styles. Prototyping and design documentation was crucial to translate the design from design files into the live app.

Prototypes aided design reviews and allowed direct communication with engineering.

As a 2nd party app, scroll behavior was custom and had to be built from the ground up.

Prototyping helped explore ways to simplify the profile view through interaction.

Also introduced in iOS17 was pronoun support. We worked with the Product team to first understand the sensitivity that went into creating this feature. As well as thoughtfully consider how this would be used in a company context. We elected to include the customization as optional, and completely in control of the employee.

Pronoun customization with support across multiple languages.

The visually rich profile displayed when a photo is uploaded, is incentive for employees and business to express themselves within the directory. And now business of any size can leverage a feature once restricted to larger organizations.