Kelp Plugin
Browser plugin for real-time customer intelligence within workflow.
Intelligence at Your Fingertips
The Kelp Plugin is a Chrome browser extension that surfaces customer intelligence directly within the sales rep's workflow — on LinkedIn profiles, email threads, and web pages. Instead of switching between tabs to look up contact details, deal history, or company information, everything appears in a sleek overlay panel. We designed the plugin to be contextually aware, showing the most relevant information based on what the user is currently viewing.
The Challenge
Sales reps constantly context-switched between their CRM, email, and LinkedIn to gather customer information. This killed productivity and led to missed signals. On average, reps spent 40% of their time on data lookup rather than selling. The plugin needed to eliminate this friction while fitting naturally into existing browser workflows without feeling intrusive or cluttered.
How We Approached It
Workflow Shadowing
We shadowed 20 sales reps through their daily workflow, timing every context switch and documenting every tool they touched. We discovered that the average rep switches between 7 tabs over 50 times per hour, with each switch costing 20-30 seconds of reorientation. This quantitative baseline informed our design goals and helped us prioritize which information to surface first in the overlay.
Overlay Architecture
We designed an overlay architecture that surfaces information without leaving the current page. The panel slides in from the right edge, maintaining the host page's context while adding an intelligence layer. We tested multiple overlay sizes, positions, and behaviors, ultimately finding that a 380px panel with collapsible sections gave the best balance between information density and screen real estate preservation.
Progressive Disclosure
We created a progressive disclosure system — summary first, details on demand. The initial view shows a contact card with key metrics and recent activity. Clicking any section expands into detailed views: full contact history, deal pipeline status, company news, and engagement signals. This layered approach keeps the interface clean for quick glances while supporting deep research when needed.
Cross-browser Testing
We tested with 50 users across Chrome and Edge browsers, identifying rendering inconsistencies and performance bottlenecks. The plugin needed to work reliably on LinkedIn, Gmail, Outlook Web, and Salesforce — each with different DOM structures and content security policies. We optimized rendering performance to ensure the overlay appears within 200ms and doesn't impact host page performance.
What We Delivered
A contextually-aware browser extension that eliminates context-switching for sales reps by surfacing customer intelligence directly within their workflow. The progressive disclosure design keeps things clean for quick lookups while supporting deep research, and the overlay architecture ensures zero disruption to the host page experience.
What Makes It Stand Out
In-page Overlay
Non-intrusive side panel that appears contextually without leaving the current page.
Contact Intelligence
Instant access to contact details, company info, and engagement history.
Activity Timeline
Chronological view of all interactions with a contact across channels.
Quick Actions
One-click actions for logging calls, creating tasks, and updating deal stages.
Custom Fields
Configurable data fields that match each team's specific workflow needs.
CRM Sync
Real-time bi-directional sync with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive.
Design Highlights
