Trello & Dropbox
About the Partnership
When working on a beloved product like Trello, wonderful opportunities arise more often than not. Working with the Dropbox team was one of these opportunities.
My role for this partnership was Project Manager and Design Lead. It was an incredible opportunity to plan, organize, and execute the strategic plan while simultaneously collaborating remotely with the Dropbox Design team on Figma. I'm based in St. John's, NL, and the Dropbox design team is based San Francisco -- we were many, many miles apart with a 4.5 hour time difference.
The intent of the partnership was to provide immense value for people and teams using both products to create a centralized location to manage tasks, projects, and associated files.
How We Achieved Our Vision
On the Dropbox side of things, it is now possible to directly attach Dropbox files to Trello cards with a dedicated Trello share button. On Trello, the updated Dropbox Power-Up provides users with rich full file previews and file details all within Trello -- something that was not possible in the past. Previously, users needed to open a new window to preview the files. Now, with the new Dropbox Power-Up capabilities, when people are using Trello and want to preview a Dropbox file, they can stay in the flow without having to switch context. It's such a big time saver, a satisfying experience, and it keeps everyone in the flow.
Our Design and Engineering Approach
To help us understand how to approach and solve the problem, we performed user research throughout this process on both the Dropbox and Trello products.
On Trello, we identified an opportunity to educate and create awareness of the seamless integration. We observed that if a user had Dropbox files on their cards, it wasn't necessarily clear that a Dropbox Power-Up was available to provide users with rich file previews or that a Dropbox file even existed on the card. Dropbox files would be listed in the generic Attachment section amongst other attachments on the card. We had a discovery and onboarding problem to solve.
To educate and increase awareness of the new Dropbox features, we built what we internally called an 'Attachment Section'. This was a contextual-based suggestion section that contained the following details when a user added a Dropbox link to a card:
Educational text to inform the user about the possibilities available with the Dropbox Power-Up;
A gathering of all of the Dropbox files on the card in a branded Dropbox attachment section. This meant Dropbox files would no longer get lost in the generic attachment area;
A clear call-to-action button for adding the Dropbox Power-Up. This helped users skip a lot of steps, such as having to leave the card, find where to open the Power-Up directory, and find the Dropbox Power-up once the directory was opened;
Placeholder thumbnails to tease the extra functionality they would received if the Power-Up was enabled.
With education and awareness addressed, we wanted to find additional opportunities to improve the seamless integration. For some context, Trello had limits on how many Power-Ups you could have on boards depending on your plan – Free plans were limited to one Power-Up per board. Because we wanted everyone to enjoy the new Dropbox integration, whether they were attaching files from Dropbox or wanting to get the rich previews on Trello, we launched what we called Power-Up 'Bonus'. The 'Bonus' label meant that the Dropbox Power-Up wouldn't count towards anyone's Power-Up limit regardless of their plan. The 'Bonus' label was informative, and we made it fun by adding the gift emoji to the label.
At the time, the Power-Up Directory didn't include Power-Up labels for things like ‘install counts’, which meant that we not only had to build them, but they had to be built and designed in a way that made them scalable and flexible enough to be used by any type of Power-Up. We didn't just add the Bonus label, but also board count installs and staff favourites. These Power-Up labels have since improved the Power-Up Directory experience because it’s a way to provide social proof for users who are new to Power-Ups and looking for guidance on which Power-Ups to try as they seek to level up their workflows. Labels have been a huge hit.
The Launch
The partnership announcement and demo took place September 2019 at Dropbox's first ever "Work In Progress" conference. Watch the Trello partnership portion of the Keynote below (Trello integration begins at 28:20).
Both Dropbox and Trello planned a staged release for our integration which gave us the opportunity to monitor the integration and resolve any bugs before the public release. I'm happy to report that it was bug free and a huge hit. After the release and months of observation, we were very pleased with the results. I'm personally pleased that we shipped ahead of schedule and elated with our design solutions. Most importantly, our users loved the integration experience for both products. Collaborating between Dropbox and Trello is more seamless and delightful than ever before.
Get the Dropbox Power-Up for Trello now, and start enjoying the new features.
