Finance Pal is an online platform designed for freelancers and small business owners. It enables users to track time spent on client work and record this data for several key purposes: billing clients accurately, monitoring company revenue, and providing a clear overview of outstanding invoices.
For freelancers and small business owners juggling multiple responsibilities, tasks like billing and tracking work hours often get overlooked. However, this can create challenges when it's time to invoice clients, as recalling crucial details becomes difficult if not recorded consistently throughout a project. Some clients even require precise breakdowns of time, including dates and specific project descriptions, for their bookkeeping needs.
Building an invoice management solution that works seamlessly across mobile, tablet, and desktop can replace outdated systems that fail to streamline the process of recording completed work. The platform will be designed to remain simple and intuitive, enabling users to easily extract data in a clear and digestible format.
This project was an individual student endeavour. Following the design stages of the UX product lifecycle has enhanced my planning and research skills.
During there research phase of the project, I analysed medium sized and large size company and products I observed that some products included an excessive number of features, which appeared to complicate the information architecture, particularly for users who might be new to the product.
To better understand different user types, I conducted foundational user interviews with a set of targeted questions. The goal was to identify the frustrations and requirements of employees and freelance creatives. Qualitative research was chosen as it was the most effective method for a small research group.
Personal information being stored by website from using previous invoicing platforms.
During busy periods struggling to keep up with invoicing clients.
If invoices aren’t paid on time.
Descriptions on invoices being incomplete and hard to understand during tax claims.
This is a basic overview of Finance Pal website sitemap with consideration of other pages. The priority for this project has been the main user flow of recording data and generating invoice for client payments.
After initially creating wireframes, I began the process of adding more detail and consideration to user flow and requirements. Effort was made in keeping the design and UI as simple as possible as this website is for small sized companies. I would like to remove the guess work with an intuitive which does not require too much exploration and learning.
During the first round of interviews, I learnt I should have provided more information to participants of what to expect in a low fidelity design usability testing. Initially, I was focused more on the layout and information architecture. During the early stage of testing, I was advised of a better way in labelling dashboard sections with a more logical approach so users would immediately understand what they were viewing.
The initial slide-out menu grouped all links together without any categorisation, making it difficult for users to quickly scan and find what they needed. Observing the confusion and the time users spent deciphering the menu during the usability test, I revised the design to include clear categorisation of the links, improving scannability and ease of navigation.
UI components were checked using WCAG that colours meet AA Compliance.
Easy to read typeface has been selected with a clean and simple design in different weights. The type hierarchy scale system allows the user to decipher different sections.
Labels under icons for screen readers and to allow users to easily understand navigation bar links.
Throughout the Finance Pal design process, the usability studies proved invaluable in shaping the various stages of the user flow. The feedback gathered significantly contributed to simplifying the information presented and eliminating ambiguity, especially on the dashboard.
