MYOB
MYOB is the key accounting software player in Australia and New Zealand, reshaping how accounting practices manage their clients' tax obligations and workload.
I was invited to lead an extensive research initiative at MYOB, where I had the opportunity to shape a brand-new product that revolutionized how accounting firms handle these processes.
This project allowed me to influence the design from the ground up, simplifying complex workflows and driving impactful change across the industry.
Client:
MYOB
Work Location:
Australia & New Zealand
Role:
Product Design Lead
Date:
2018-2020
Preview:
www.myob.com
The goal was to simplify job management for accounting practices across Australia and New Zealand. The challenge was to design a solution that would unify all job that an accountant perform in one place, from client engagement to billing, while accommodating different user roles like bookkeepers, accountants, and admin staff.
To address this, we conducted comprehensive research across accounting firms, exploring pain points and opportunities for a seamless experience.
My role
Driving Strategic Research & Design
As the lead researcher and designer, my role was to fully understand the lifecycle of an accounting practice job, identify all the means of workload management they go through, and present a solution for the features MYOB should build to become a leader in the market of cloud-based job management and capacity planning.
This role involved extensive stakeholder management across all leadership boards, product managers, and designers, where I had the opportunity to be the leader who would influence MYOB's direction on what should be built to conquer and lead the market in this segment.
Below are three examples of the numerous research activities and outputs developed throughout this project.
Interviews
Discovery Interviews
Over 16 accounting practices and 20+ users were interviewed across Australia and New Zealand. Visiting clients in their work environments for the first time was crucial to gaining a deeper understanding of their processes.
A combination of in-person and online interviews provided insights into how accounting practices operate, the types of jobs they manage for clients, and how they handle workflows in their own unique settings."
This version improves clarity and flow while keeping the focus on your research work.
Workshop
A Job Lifecycle
A half-day workshop was conducted with 13 partners and owners from various accounting practices to discuss the lifecycle of client jobs within their firms. This session uncovered critical gaps that weren’t addressed during interviews and provided a deeper understanding of how practices of different sizes manage jobs, highlighting commonalities and differences.
The workshop resulted in a comprehensive CX journey map, detailing the process from initial client contact to job delivery, including pain points and opportunities for improvement.
Low cost
Concept Testing
Using card sorting exercises as well as Airtable as a low-cost prototype, we quickly gathered valuable insights without creating any custom designs.
This approach allowed us to test the information architecture and interactions before committing to design.
Users were able to add, remove, and reorganize information, helping us understand what worked best for them and sparking discussions about the relevance and presentation of the data. This workshop provided the final critical insights and boosted our confidence in designing the feature with precision.
Design System
The designs had to adapt to what's available at MYOB Feelix Design System.
Using this design system enabled us to speed up our development process but also brought a few constraints in what elements could be designed.
Some of the functionalities had to be adapted to what's supported by Feelix in order to keep the consistency of the product.
Learn more about Feelix Design System
Usability Tests
We've ran several usability tests in different stages for different types of users based on what their roles and goals were.
Some where job managers, others, preparers, bookkeepers, accountants, admin...
All of our users had different goals when using this features and was important that we nailed all experiences for them.
Development Support
The team of development came onboard once we started our usability tests rounds.
I am always an advocate of including developers right from the start, but for this specific project, the team were only assembled when we were already in the usability test phase
I've invited them to our sessions so they could experience users feedback and trust the work we've done so far. Involving them in this phase was extremely powerful as now they had the voice of the users instead of just listening a designer talking about them.
The best and most important part of involving the team into the UX process is to get them to be a supporter and raise their own concerns in a way I haven't thought of.