I Built a Core Publishing Feature at Staffbase

Editorial Calendar
Role Product Designer
Year 2021
Company Staffbase
The challenge

Internal communication teams lacked visibility into what was being published across channels, leading to content overload, missed messages, and disengaged employees.

The bet

Giving admins and editors a shared planning view—before anything is published—would improve coordination and make internal communication more effective and strategic.

The outcome

We shipped an editorial calendar that became one of the most-used features, a key market differentiator, and an AHA moment in sales demos—eventually setting a standard copied by competitors.

When Everything Is Important, Nothing Is Seen

Internal communication teams publish without visibility into what else is going out. As a result:

Problem

Important messages are buried under content overload

Problem

Employees disengage or mute channels

Problem

Admins spend extra time coordinating via meetings and side tools

Why this matters?

When employees disengage, communication teams lose impact and strategic relevance.

Why existing solutions fail?

Generic calendars, Trello, and Excel live outside the workflow and rely on manual updates, extra meetings, and coordination overhead.

Workflow Before UI

I avoided designing a generic calendar. Comms teams already have those. The goal was to understand their specific workflows and design a solution that fits naturally into how they plan and publish content. I also challenged whether a calendar was the right answer at all, looking for adjacent problems that could be solved differently.

Discovery inputs

  • Interviews with ~12 customers
  • Survey with trusted customers to map workflows
  • Deep dive with Customer Support on recurring issues
  • Review of Slack threads and idea portal requests
  • Desk research on internal communications best practices
  • Competitive analysis (direct + indirect)
  • Business value assessment with Product

To converge, I framed How Might We questions that guided ideation and prioritization.

Aligning Early to Move Faster

To avoid designing in isolation, I brought the full scrum team into the problem space early. The goal wasn't ideation for its own sake, but shared ownership, faster decisions, and fewer surprises downstream.

I ran a focused two-day workshop:

Day 1

  • Sense-making: We synthesized research into an experience map across core personas. This aligned the team on real user pain, not assumptions.
  • Divergence: A structured Crazy 8s session surfaced multiple solution directions.

Decision

  • We converged quickly, aligned on a calendar as the strongest bet, and made the trade-offs explicit.

Day 2

  • Convergence: We affinity-mapped potential capabilities and filtered them by impact and feasibility, producing a clear input for design and delivery.
Workshop day 1 - team collaboration
Workshop day 2 - affinity mapping

Fast Validation Before Commitment

I deliberately started with low-fidelity wireframes to validate structure and value, not visual polish. We ran usability testing the same week to pressure-test the concept with real users.

The results gave us a strong signal to proceed, while the Product Manager gathered parallel feedback from key stakeholders—keeping discovery, design, and alignment moving in sync.

Low-fidelity wireframe of editorial calendar

Not Another Calendar

An editorial calendar that gives admins and editors a shared, real-time overview of planned, scheduled, and published communication — across channels.

Calendar hybrid view

Calendar or Trello?

A hybrid planning surface that merges time-based clarity with task-level flexibility—no context switching required.

Progressive disclosure view

Progressive disclosure

A clean, scannable calendar that reveals details only when needed, keeping complexity out of the way.

Drag and drop planning

Plan drafts visually

Drag-and-drop turned planning into a fast, tangible, and intuitive action.

Scheduling conflict cards

Conflict resolution

Scheduling conflicts surfaced early with clear guidance, preventing last-minute chaos.

The result – seamless planning

Outcomes

For users

98% adoption across communications teams who tried the calendar. Transformed chaotic publishing into evenly paced, predictable workflows.

For design team

Became an example within Staffbase on how to create user-centered yet business-impactful features.

For business

The calendar became a key differentiator in the market, setting Staffbase apart from competitors. Competitors copied the feature—a true sign of success.

For revenue

The calendar became an AHA moment in demos, making it easier for sales to close deals.

Feedback

Firstly, I think it's such a useful tool, really powerful in terms of having a clear overview of publications.

Feedback

The editorial calendar is awesome!!!!!!!!!!

Feedback

I explicitly asked if we could do anything better and they denied (CX after talking to customer)

Do I still have your attention?
Let's dig deeper

Role & Team

My role

  • Discovery and problem framing
  • Workshop facilitation
  • Wireframes creation
  • Visual Design
  • Concept validation
  • Usability testing
  • Developer hand-off
  • Post-launch feedback gathering and iteration

Team

  • Product Manager
  • Backend Engineers
  • Frontend Engineers
  • Quality Assurance Specialist

Goals & Success Criteria

Success was evaluated through:

  • Strong early adoption post-beta
  • Positive qualitative feedback from customers and sales
  • Feature frequently highlighted in demos and evaluations
  • Usage data: number of planned and scheduled posts

Challenges

#1 Defining a meaningful MVP without overbuilding

  • Launched early by zeroing in on the high-impact features that made the MVP instantly lovable.
  • Simplified the calendar to a single, intuitive view.
  • Delivered value fast while avoiding feature bloat.

#2 Connecting calendar to the existing ecosystem

  • Embedded the calendar seamlessly into existing workflows through cross-team collaboration.
  • Influenced and negotiated with other teams to adapt their features for smooth integration.
  • Ensured a cohesive product experience without compromising ownership or quality.

#3 Adapting the feature to a new design system mid-life cycle

  • Redesigned a beloved calendar to fit a new design system while preserving usability.
  • Turned disruption into opportunity, adding powerful features that boosted long-term value.
  • Strategically managed user experience during a complex transition.

Reflection

The biggest lesson was that designing alignment is often more impactful than designing UI.

The initial success didn't come from visual polish, but from slowing down, validating the real problem, and bringing the entire team into shared understanding. That foundation is what allowed the feature to scale, evolve, and create lasting business impact.

This project reinforced how critical it is to protect simplicity early, even when it feels underpowered. Several stakeholders pushed for advanced controls and filters upfront, but anchoring on clarity and scalability allowed the calendar to earn trust quickly and scale sustainably.