QuickBooks First Accounting Benefit
Our target user
Stressed out small business owner who is passionate about what they do/sell but they know nothing about accounting beyond it being important to continue doing what they're passionate about.
They're scared about what they don't know, but are willing to learn, as they want to accurately see how they're doing and be ready for tax time
The problems
Small business owners feel worried that they’re going to organize their business wrong and that they’ll forever screw up my books.
They can't figure out where to go in QuickBooks or what to do next
Small business owners who lack confidence in DIY accounting
The opportunity
To create a delightful and confidence-instilling first time use banking experience for small business owners who have little to no accounting knowledge or experience in accounting, bookkeeping, or professional finance.
Project duration: 6 months in 2016
The Results
Experience released to: US, UK, France, & Australia
$24 million in incremental revenue
10% more customers returned to use the product
2% conversion increase
Based on qualitative interviews, users were more confident in the value QuickBooks was providing their small business in helping them get their finances organized
How I got there
Understanding the domain
I took a bookkeeping course to better understand what happens behind our product’s hood and to know how to craft experiences to help small businesses effortless get their business organized
Gain empathy for our users
I then chatted with small business owners who were going through our QuickBooks product for the first time, trying to get it set up to organize their business
Craft a vision
Once I had understood the domain and better understood our users’ pains and goals, I crafted experience principles and brought those principles and insights to life in a vision storyboard to share with the QuickBooks organization and get them rallied towards our future
Map out the flow to get there
Working with my product manager partner, we identified core areas of the vision state and how we could deliver benefit in a phased approach. Once we had identified the core areas, I mapped those to an overall flow that we would then start executing on.
Designing the details
Once we had established the overall flow, I then started iterating on the details of:
1. How to help the user feel like they’re making progress
2. What information to capture for each transaction that balances compliance + ease
3. What benefit is the most enticing for users to continue organizing their business
Finalize designs & get alignment with the org
This project was one of the main things we, as an organization, launched to improve our first time use experiences across QuickBooks. We had 2x daily reviews with all senior QuickBooks leadership where we presented our work to quickly gather feedback and alignment. You can see in the video below just how “intimate” our daily reviews and alignment meetings were.