Designing Notification Settings. Giving users control over how and where they receive updates.
Project description
Deel needed to give users greater control over how they receive communications. We designed and launched a notification settings system that allowed users to opt in or out of different channels while laying the foundation for a scalable notifications framework.
Problem
Users were receiving a high volume of individual notifications, but they had no way to manage or control these notifications. There were no settings which led to frustration and a spike in support tickets.
The lack of a centralized notification system meant that we needed to design a solution to introduced user-driven preferences for the first time.
Company
Deel
Scope
Team
01. Shaping the experience
I collaborated with engineers, a product manager, and customer support to initially define the broader notification settings framework.
My role was to lead the design approach, mapping user needs, structuring categories, creating a design system and ensuring the system felt intuitive and scalable.
The key was to strike a balance: give users granular control while keeping the interface simple enough to configure quickly.
02. Opportunity
In the SaaS landscape, users increasingly expect multi-channel flexibility, being able to decide between push notifications, in-app alerts, instant emails or consolidated digests.
This was a chance for Deel not just to reduce notification overload but to build a unified communication system that could scale across channels.
Through competitive research and user feedback, we learned that users wanted more transparency over what notifications they would receive, the flexibility to choose the channel that best fit their workflow, and a clean, trustworthy interface to manage it all.
03. Design solutions
We designed a Notification Settings UI where users could control delivery by category (contracts, payroll, compliance), subcategories and also by channel (in-app, mobile push, email, Slack).
Key design decisions included grouping notifications into clear, logical categories to reduce complexity, adding simple on/off toggles across all four channels for fine-grained flexibility, connecting settings directly to the Daily Digest to make email consolidation easy, and ensuring consistency with Deel’s design system to maintain clarity, trust, and technical feasibility across platforms.
I also worked closely with engineering to ensure that the UI logic mapped to backend infrastructure, creating a scalable base for future communication preferences.
04. Results
The launch of notification settings transformed how Deel communicates with users, leading to a 48% reduction in email volume after the Digest option was adopted, a 25% increase in engagement with the consolidated email, and a 23% drop in support tickets related to “too many emails” within the first month.
User feedback highlighted the clarity and control of the new settings, and for me, the most rewarding outcome was seeing how giving users agency over their notifications rebuilt trust, improved engagement, and set a scalable foundation for Deel’s global communications.