RevUp
Saving days of time & thousands of dollars by converting a spreadsheet to an automated product.
Web app
Background
The revenue services team (RST) at the Wilson Elser law firm was manually managing 12,000-15,000 bills per month across 9,000 clients. We designed and developed a product that would automate almost the entire process.
Role
Lead Product Design, Art Direction, Design System Creation, Workshop Facilitation
Team
Shannon Hosmer, Creative Director
and more at Mindgrub
Client
Wilson Elser
Year
2023-2024
Challenge
Multiple spreadsheets were used to document the billing rates and requirements for each client and as many as 16 attorneys representing them. In a such a large firm, the rates and requirements would change, new clients would need to be added to the sheets, old clients and attorneys removed from the sheets. The RST was made aware of these changes via email nearly daily. Human error was inevitable.
My task was to save time in the RST's overly-involved day to day work flows and save money by reducing human error. I determined 2 key solutions that leveraged automation to meet those primary goals and designed the product end-to-end.
Solution
Alerts
Changes to rates, timekeepers, and matters (cases) would be pulled from a database and flagged in the UI to notify users of new information, inconsistencies, & errors. Alerts would surface as banner and pill flags ranging in severity throughout the system that the user could take action on. The user had a single-pane view of alerts from the highest level that would allow them to drill down to where action was required.
Tasks
Actions would automatically be created for each flag and lumped into tasks. Team members could complete these actions, create a task for themselves, or a manager could delegate tasks out to their team. Relevant updates would cascade throughout the system so that they were updated one time in a single place.
Discovery
I was responsible for designing both the art direction and product from 0 to 1.
UX Challenge
Learn the ins and outs of an intensely nuanced documentation process with exceptions to nearly every rule.
UX Process
Watched client-provided training videos typically used to train new RST members to understand workflow, acronyms & jargon, and determine product requirements.
Created a mental model of the new system, a site map, and high-level user flows based on these learnings.
Facilitated a workshop to prioritize user stories on a value-effort matrix.
Design Process
Facilitated personality slider and 20:20 workshops to determine the visual direction the client envisioned for the product
Created 2 style tile directions using the feedback collected from the workshops
Design Solution
The direction selected utilized the FluentUI library both based on visual preferences by the client and because users were already familiar with Microsoft products. I customized the library using Figma variables cutting weeks out of the design process. Leveraging the FluentUI components allowed me to move straight into product design without standard wireframing.
