As a product designer at Quicken, I researched and redesigned a windows desktop tool for small business and rental property management. This is brief case-study of the work.
Quicken’s Home & Business and Rental Property Manager helps small businessmen and rental property owners to…
- Track business profit & loss and tax deductions.
- Create a budget to track spending, categorize expenses.
- Email custom invoices from Quicken with payment links to customers and tenants.
- Manage lease terms, rental rates, and security deposits all in one place.
Brief:
The company was merging the two products into one, HBRPM. As a product designer, my responsibility was to re-design the unified software aiming towards…
- Simpler Information Architecture
- Efficient User Task Flow
- Better Navigation and Findability
- Visual Revamp and much more…
Process:
Personas:
Design:
Property & Tenants
This tab was designed to improve the communication and documentation owner-tenant, thus enhancing their relationship.
Owner/Property manager could get to know the lease expiry date, tenant’s contact details and notification message templates for various use-cases.
Improved Navigation:
Impact:
Users’ Excitement:
When we showed the complete clickable prototype to users, they loved it and shared their appreciation and excitement towards the new simplified design.
Stakeholder’s Approval:
Fellow Senior Designers, Product Management, Subject Matter Experts and senior staff (CEO & CTO) after witnessing the complete journey of the redesign continued to welcome the envisioning of the product.
Developer’s Acceptance:
The process of redesign included the developer’s feedback and insights. The technological challenges of the development were considered and the new improved design was accepted and the development was excited to work on it.
Learnings:
- Personal finance is a tricky domain. No matter how many prototypes we test, it’s difficult to empathize users looking at their life earnings and taking decisions to stay financially healthy.
- Understanding users’ mental model of a product and fixing it without breaking it was a critical challenge. The most efficient task-flow is not always the best one.
- Focusing on something user needs is way too important than fixing something that we feel is broken. Sometimes a simple fix can solve a big problem.
- Designing for both new and current users is a fine art of balancing the consistency and creativity. I had to turn to research upon conflicts of decision making.
That’s it, folks!
If you are interested to know more do get in touch…
