J.Hilburn · 2025 · iPad + iPhone New feature · Shipped

In-App Notifications.

A comprehensive in-app notification system, designed from scratch — and re-scoped into a version that could actually ship.

The brief · my role

A whole business, and no way to see it.

J.Hilburn's stylists run a business — clients, orders, inventory, their own rank and earnings — but the app gave them no way to see what was happening across it. A client viewed a style, an order shipped, a product sold out, they hit a new rank: all of it was invisible.

I designed a notification system from the ground up to surface it — the bell in the top nav, a single notification center, every category and type behind it, and the states most teams skip. It runs on both the stylist's iPad and iPhone.

The first version went big: eight categories, granular preferences, a “Go to Resolution” action on every notification. When it proved more than engineering could build, I didn't hand it back — I re-scoped it into V2, the same system shaped to what the team could ship. And it shipped.

I designed the system. When the team couldn't build it, I designed the one they could — and it shipped.

— The story in one line

01 — The system

One center, two devices.

Everything reaches the stylist through the bell in the top nav and lands in one center, grouped by category — All, Clients, Product, Team, VMA, and Web Orders. The same system runs on the iPad at the desk and the iPhone in their hand.

The notification center on iPad — category tabs and a feed with red unread dots

The notification center — iPad and iPhone.

↓ Scroll

The full feed — scroll through a stylist's day.

02 — The types

One center, every type.

The center filters by category — and each surfaces its own notification types: a product going low or sold out, a new client acquired, a team milestone, a web order. Fifteen-plus types in all.

Product notifications — back in stock, low quantity, temporarily out of stock

Team notifications — new client, new order

03 — V1 to V2

Designed big, shipped lean.

V1 went big — eight categories (Personal, Orders, Appointments, Home Office), a “Go to Resolution” button on every row, and granular preferences. V2 kept the system and cut the weight: six categories, a cleaner row, no per-item CTA — so it could actually be built.

Knowing what to cut, and designing so the cut still feels whole, is the part that never shows in the final screens.

V1 notifications — eight category tabs and a Go to Resolution button on every notification

V2 notifications — the shipped version, six categories, a cleaner feed

6categories

All, Clients, Product, Team, VMA, Web Orders

15+ types

Clients, team, product, career, appointments

2devices

One system, iPad and iPhone

1shipped

Re-scoped from V1 into a version that shipped

Reflection

The design that shipped.

Designing a system on paper is the easy part. Designing one a team can actually build — on their timeline, inside their constraints — is the harder, more useful skill.

V2 wasn't a compromise. It was the design that shipped — and the one stylists actually use, on both their devices.

IMAGINE · DESIGN · BUILD