SocketLabs Dashboard & StreamScore enhancement
The SocketLabs email delivery dashboard needed an update to help users solve email deliverability issues.
Needs: Make information more scalable, Incorporate a status bar of initial sign-up steps, Clearer graph for email statistics, allow users to filter ‘sent email’ by sending the domain, and Expand the tabular data to view and scroll through more information. Navigation redesign.
Strategy:
Update the look and feel to use in Product Marketing Material
Create a one-stop shop to see my entire email deliverability status.
Provide opportunities for users to drill down and solve deliverability problems ie: failed delivery, wrong emails etc.
Guiding Principles:
Scannable
Past, Current and Future stats
2. Email Expert
Role: Marketing or CRM team member
Profile:
Understands email delivery from a content and engagement perspective
Routinely checks deliverability stats to optimize campaign performance
Less technical, but focused on engagement rates, open/click rates, and deliverability trends
Leverages SocketLabs insights to tweak campaigns and maintain sender reputation
Goals:
Monitor engagement and inbox placement
Identify performance drops before they escalate
Ensure campaigns are reaching target audiences effectively
User Personas
To ground our design decisions in real user needs, I collaborated with Marketing, Support, and Sales teams to identify key user types through first-hand interviews and subject matter expert input. This discovery process led to the definition of two primary personas:
1. System Admin
Role: Infrastructure/IT team member
Profile:
Deep technical knowledge of email systems and server-side delivery processes
Primarily responsible for monitoring and maintaining the sending infrastructure
Uses SocketLabs primarily when a problem arises or when delivery metrics fall outside expected thresholds
Prioritizes diagnostic tools, error logs, blacklisting status, and protocol configurations (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
Goals:
Quickly identify and resolve delivery issues
Ensure infrastructure is healthy and authenticated properly
Maintain uptime and avoid disruptions to high-volume sending
Conceptual Mapping: Visualizing the Deliverability Ecosystem
Email deliverability is inherently complex, involving multiple interconnected systems—from sending servers to inbox providers to domain-level configurations. To make sense of this ecosystem and guide dashboard design decisions, I created a conceptual map that visualizes how these components relate to one another and how data flows to the end user.
This map outlines key relationships, such as:
The connection between sending servers and associated sending domains
How inbox providers (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) evaluate incoming mail
The types of data extracted during this process—such as bounce codes, engagement signals, and authentication results (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
How these metrics feed into SocketLabs tools like StreamScore and populate the Dashboard
By mapping this system, we were able to better prioritize which data points needed to be surfaced at a high level, and which details could be explored through deeper drill-downs. This approach ensured that users—whether technical or non-technical—could clearly understand where issues originate and how to take action across different layers of the email infrastructure.
Competitive Analysis: Positioning for Proactive Email Monitoring
To help strategically position the product within the email deliverability space, I conducted a competitive analysis of leading platforms. The goal was to identify both standard practices and whitespace opportunities in the market.
One key insight was the lack of a high-level, at-a-glance view—a 1,000-foot perspective—that helps users monitor overall email performance across domains and time. While many competitors offer deep technical diagnostics, few provide proactive summaries or visual cues that signal emerging issues before they become critical.
This presented an opportunity to differentiate by designing features that notify users of performance changes—such as shifts in engagement rates, spam complaints, or deliverability drops—before they lead to deliverability failure or lost revenue.
These insights directly informed the direction of the StreamScore dashboard, placing emphasis on:
High-level summaries with drill-down capabilities
Automated alerts tied to engagement and infrastructure metrics
Clear messaging around what’s happening and why it matters
By prioritizing this proactive, user-friendly layer, we positioned SocketLabs to better serve both technical users and business stakeholders alike.
User Story Mapping for Email Score Alert System
Mapping the user story allows us to frame the project within the context of real user behavior. By visualizing the steps users take—and pairing them with potential supporting features—we can prioritize functionality, identify pain points, and guide our sprint planning with clarity.
In this mapping exercise, user behaviors are highlighted in blue, while potential features are noted in yellow. Not all features will be included in the initial sprint, but this process sets a clear direction for design and development.
Ideation Sketches
To deepen user understanding of email deliverability performance, I developed a series of sketches focused on drilling down into score data at the domain level. These concepts visualize how each domain contributes to the overall score, highlighting critical metrics such as bounce rates, authentication failures (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and blacklist status.
The goal was to surface domain-specific patterns and anomalies quickly—enabling users to pinpoint underperforming senders or configurations. Each sketch emphasizes clarity, with modular components for trend graphs, status indicators, and guided recommendations. These explorations lay the groundwork for a more actionable and transparent analytics experience.
A Sketch of the drill down flow from the dashboard to the expanding components showing what effects the score
The idea is to show the core, the trend, and the components that impact the score
One thing that was left out of the previous iteration was showing the Poor, fair and Good and where they fall in the different colors.
Wire Flow: From High-Level Trends to Domain-Level Diagnostics
A core user behavior we needed to support was the ability to monitor email performance across multiple sending domains. To meet this need, I designed a wire flow that guides users from a high-level overview down to granular insights—supporting both strategic monitoring and tactical troubleshooting.
The flow begins with a global view of deliverability scores, helping users quickly identify which domains are underperforming. From there, users can drill down into individual domains to view specific performance metrics such as bounce rates, spam complaints, authentication failures, and blacklist status.
To resolve issues efficiently, the flow allows further drill-down to the timestamp level, helping users trace when and where anomalies occurred. This end-to-end visibility supports critical behaviors like:
Spotting trends across all domains at scale
Investigating performance dips per domain
Pinpointing issues down to the exact date and time
Taking corrective action based on specific failure types
By aligning the interface with this behavior-first wire flow, we enable users to move seamlessly from detection to diagnosis—ensuring email performance issues are addressed proactively and with precision.
Wireframes: Modular Dashboard for Email & Account Visibility
The dashboard is composed of modular components that surface key aspects of both email performance and account status. Designed as a centralized hub, it acts as a one-stop-shop where users can quickly assess deliverability metrics, authentication health (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), blacklisting alerts, and overall score trends across multiple sending domains.
Beyond providing visibility, the dashboard also serves as an engagement layer—offering direct pathways to troubleshoot issues, explore domain-specific data, and take corrective action. Each component is intentionally structured to balance clarity, hierarchy, and interactivity—ensuring users can both monitor and act within the same interface.
Socketlabs sitemap showing impacted pages (In blue) and new pages to be created (in green)
This sketch is used as a point of discussion surrounding the number of components and their placement on the page
Each server has a score for email delivery, I designed this dashboard for users to scan the performance at the server level and dig down further to see any email performance issues.
Design System/Pattern library
Visual Design Enhancement & Brand Alignment
As part of the broader initiative, we also focused on elevating the visual design to ensure consistency with the SocketLabs brand. We began by selecting a flexible design template that supported modern UI patterns and scalable components. From there, we customized the layout, color palette, typography, and iconography to align with SocketLabs' visual identity.
In addition to adhering to brand standards, we ensured that the new styles harmonized with existing design system patterns—maintaining continuity across the platform while introducing a more refined and user-friendly aesthetic. This effort helped unify the interface and reinforce brand trust across all
Dashboard
Server Setup Status Bar
The status bar gives users a clear view of their onboarding progress across four key steps: signing up, sending a first email, setting up authentication, and enabling click-tracking analytics. Highlighting authentication within this flow is essential, since properly configuring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC ensures better inbox placement and protects the sender’s domain reputation. By visualizing these steps together, the bar helps users track their progress, understand what’s left to complete, and build confidence that their server is fully ready for reliable sending.
Server Details
The Server Stats component surfaces critical account metrics — API calls, billing period, and bandwidth usage — each paired with an intuitive gauge. This design gives users an immediate sense of their system’s performance and resource consumption, helping them anticipate limits before they impact deliverability or incur extra costs. By turning complex usage data into simple visual gauges, the dashboard empowers users to monitor server health at a glance and take proactive action when needed.
Per-Mailing Performance Table
The performance table provides a detailed breakdown of each mailing, including delivery rates, failures, opens, clicks, complaints, and unsubscribes. With filtering options by day, hour, ISP, or sending domain, users can drill into specific segments to identify trends and issues. By surfacing both engagement and deliverability metrics side by side, the table empowers users to measure campaign effectiveness, troubleshoot problems, and make data-driven improvements.
The StreamScore widget gives users a clear view of email health over the last 30 days, combining an overall score, trend line, and domain-level details. By surfacing key metrics like authentication status, week-over-week and day-over-day changes, it helps users quickly gauge deliverability performance and take action to keep campaigns on track.
Performance by Date Range
This component lets users define a start and end date to view engagement metrics—such as clicks, opens, and deliveries—within a chosen timeframe. By adjusting the range, users can analyze short-term campaign results or long-term trends, making it easier to measure impact, compare performance, and optimize future sends.
View Reporting, from the dashboard, click to view a more detailed breakdown of each metric
The Big Picture: From High-Level Insights to Actionable Details
A core part of the StreamScore initiative was giving users the ability to move effortlessly between summary-level insights and deep performance diagnostics. I designed a system where users can start with a high-level score—representing overall email health—and drill down into specific focus areas, such as engagement performance.
Within the engagement view, users can explore how open rates, click-throughs, and interaction patterns directly impact their overall email performance. This level of visibility helps both technical and marketing-focused users understand not just what is happening, but why it’s happening—empowering them to take informed action before problems escalate.
This layered approach reflects the broader vision of the product: offering transparency, clarity, and control across the entire email delivery lifecycle.
StreamScore Anatomy
The StreamScore widget gives users a quick read on email health with a red–yellow–green gauge, a 30-day trend line, and domain-level details. Key metrics like authentication status and week-over-week or day-over-day changes help users instantly spot performance shifts. Clicking StreamScore Details opens a deeper breakdown of contributing factors—such as audience, engagement, and reputation scores—so users can move seamlessly from a high-level view to actionable insights that keep campaigns on track.
Score Trickledown: Server-to-Domain Visibility
To reflect how overall server health influences individual domain performance, I designed a score trickledown model. The goal was to make it clear that email deliverability issues at the server level can cascade down and affect each sending domain.
I introduced a drawer component within the UI that users can open to view a timeline of outgoing email performance across domains. This timeline highlights fluctuations in key metrics like bounce rates, engagement drops, or authentication failures over time—enabling users to correlate changes in the overall server score with issues at the domain level.
This drill-down capability empowers users to diagnose problems more effectively, trace them back to their source, and prioritize which domains may require attention first—all within a seamless, intuitive interaction pattern.
Creating the Score: Transparency Behind the Metric
In designing the StreamScore, I didn’t want to present users with just another abstract metric—I wanted to build trust through transparency. That meant not only visualizing the score itself, but also clearly communicating how it’s formulated and what underlying metrics influence it.
Behind the scenes, email deliverability is impacted by a range of interconnected factors, including:
Audience health – List quality, invalid addresses, and complaint rates
Engagement – Open and click-through rates, reply behavior, and time spent reading
Reputation – Historical sending behavior, spam complaints, and blocklist status
Security – Protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC that verify sender identity
These factors shape how inbox providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook evaluate incoming mail—and ultimately decide whether it lands in the inbox, promotions tab, or spam folder.
The StreamScore interface breaks this complexity down into digestible components, helping users understand not just their current status, but how each element contributes to the overall score. This level of transparency empowers users to take targeted, informed steps toward improving deliverability—whether that means cleaning lists, improving content engagement, or fixing authentication issues.
Conclusion: Bridging Deliverability and Engagement
Overall, the redesigned dashboard successfully supported the needs of both primary personas—System Admins and Email Experts—by delivering clear, actionable insights across technical performance and marketing engagement.
By surfacing real-time deliverability metrics alongside user-friendly engagement data, the experience empowered users to not only troubleshoot infrastructure issues, but also optimize email campaigns proactively. The integration of StreamScore, domain-level drilldowns, and visual alerts helped close the gap between technical complexity and strategic decision-making—turning the dashboard into a true command center for email health.
This project demonstrates the impact of UX thinking when applied to deeply technical products: when clarity, hierarchy, and transparency are prioritized, even complex systems become approachable and effective.