Devin Johnson

Designer

Devin Johnson

Designer

ArboHQ

Case Study

Role

Project Lead, UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher


Toolkit

Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Miro

Background


ArboHQ is a financial platform designed to cater to the unique accounting needs of startups and SaaS (Software as a Service) companies. It provides a suite of services including accounting, tax compliance, R&D credit optimization, forecasting, and CFO services.


It offers automation for tasks such as revenue recognition and provides powerful insights through analytics dashboards. These features help businesses manage cash flow, track metrics like burn rate, and optimize their financial operations​

Research


Research Goals


We intend to redesign the internal Arbo platform to provide a more user-friendly and intuitive experience for CPAs, addressing navigation issues and enhancing satisfaction. This improvement will streamline financial processes, offering CPAs a more efficient tool comparable to industry competitors.


Methodologies
  • Competitive Analysis

  • Usability Study

Competitive Analysis

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Research Findings
  1. Quick Data Viewing - The need of improved performance viewing is lacking currently

  2. Textual Hierarchy - Users aren't able to quickly recognize important text and buttons to complete tasks

  3. Automation Features - Minimizing user action as much as possible is a common feature

  4. High Learning Curve - Users need a simple layout with little difficulty

To address these issues and observations, improvements in navigation, clearer prompts, contextual guidance, visual cues, and user-friendly features such as comprehensive search functionality and accessible help documentation were recommended. By implementing these enhancements, ARBO can significantly improve the user experience, increase productivity, and enhance overall satisfaction.

Design Process


My Role


Improve the User Experience for the overall "Tax Projects" process for users. Specifically, the stakeholder has stressed that the process for updating a document should be priority as it has received negative feedback in the past.


Project Goals


While the stakeholder stressed the main Business Goal was to create a new feature for this process for marketing purposes, I had a deeper vision of what users wanted and I was able to identify a common ground between the Business Goals and the User Goals that also implemented the main Business Goal.

Information Architecture


I’ve built a sitemap considering primary, secondary and tertiary navigation starting at the landing page for my task.

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User Flow

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Wireframes


With the help of sitemap along with user flows, I’ve started building my low-fidelity wireframes. New key screens I’ve design are the following:

  • Project Details

  • Documents

  • In Progress


Style Guide


I’ve collected few references from the existing app in order to define a design system that could allow me to create consistent high-fidelity wireframes. Logo, typography, color palette, buttons and icons are the main elements I’ve outlined at this stage.

Final Prototype


I’ve collected few references from the existing app in order to define a design system that could allow me to create consistent high-fidelity wireframes. Logo, typography, color palette, buttons and icons are the main elements I’ve outlined at this stage.

Key Takeaways


Challenge
  • To take on the project lead role and divide project goals amongst the team and organize our design sprint process

  • To make a huge effort in prioritisation when creating an MVP

  • To think about detailed aspects users might need when designing new hub


Lessons Learned
  • The effort of keeping it simple can make a difference in the final outcome, starting form flowcharts up to the prototype experience.

  • The importance of a well-designed UI library/Style Guide, that is built up using components, variants and frames

  • Designing in a consistent way can truly help speed up the whole process