When you log in to a website, how do the contents make you feel? Do they motivate you to accomplish tasks or do you immediately feel lost and unable to find the tools you need? First impressions matter. Thus, working from a previous software with a blank home screen, I found plentiful opportunities to be added.

In my new homepage design, you are greeted with clear diagrams of key performances indicators, customizable to your needs. On the left panel, you can pick up where you left off with links to recent activities, and shortcuts to your frequently used items. At the top panel, a global search bar is located for express access.

With business management systems such as this, the setup process can be extensive. How can we mitigate user fatigue? One pain point I identified in the older system was a very compartmentalised setup process, with barren dashboards and scarce guidance. Upon software training sessions, the team would still be heavily caught up with troubleshooting user inquiries.

Here, I proposed a carrot-stick approach. Before getting into the setup, I would first get users in anticipation of the possible meaningful charts that could come alive once each section of Set Up is complete.

In the older software, accounting transactions were organised very factually. Transactions were in one group, Inquiries in another, Analysis & Reports in the next. However, we found that for a single customer sales transaction, accountants would often need to 1) Go to reports to view aging analysis, 2) Click Inquiries to retrieve Account Inquiry, and finally 3) Transactions to create the invoice. That would take at least 3 screens and more than 6 steps.

Thus, the challenge was, what if they could all be accessed in just one place?

To grasp an accurate picture of how exactly items are grouped in the minds of accountants, I needed to pore into real accountants and their experiences. Internally, most stakeholders would not understand these accounting terms enough if I conducted a Card Sorting exercise. With that thought, I realised an untapped resource that was our subsidiary accounting company. I disseminated a Closed Card Sorting online exercise to them, which gave me tremendous insights.

It took a lot of competitive research and analysis to fully grasp the user flows of accountants. And even more roughing it out with my project manager to weigh the level of importance for features requested, versus the level of effort to develop them. But with every rough patch, I came out on the other side feeling wiser and actually grateful for the challenges I fought for. They honed me as a UX Designer to see a spectrum of solutions to problems. I look forward to more challenges to come.