QuickBooks Ecosystem Guidelines
2022
THE CHALLENGE
Our team wanted to find a way to decrease the amount of time we were spending managing requests since we were getting pulled into a lot of meetings. We also wanted to equip other teams to create proposals that were consistent with our design system and positively impact the customer experience.
ROLE
In partnership with my PM, we streamlined the approval process by establishing op mechs to manage requests and coming up with principles through which to evaluate proposals. My main contributions included creating robust design guidelines, designing Figma libraries, and giving design feedback during office hours.
Background
At Intuit, I was a part of the QuickBooks Ecosystem Lifecycle team which owned core product experiences such as onboarding, first-time-use, insights, and navigation. For a time I was the lead designer for both the home dashboard and navigation. While I was owning these product areas, we would receive a lot of requests from other teams to add new insight widgets to the dashboard or new pages to the left navigation. It was often challenging to manage everyone’s competing interests and protect the experience for our customers.
Our target “customers” were internal QuickBooks teams who were often under a lot of pressure to drive discoverability of their features in order to increase usage. The left navigation and home dashboard provide the most visibility, which is why they would come to our team to request placement in those areas.
Before
After
1. A new process
We formalized a process so that teams would know how to work with us, and we brought in my design director to make approvals and give visibility to senior leadership.
2. Design guidelines and frameworks
I created decks and Figma files for other designers/teams to reference when coming up with proposals. Then we didn’t need to spend as much time in meetings coaching others, and teams could come to office hours better prepared.
3. Figma library
I created a library for the design systems team so that designers could always have the right navigation shell to help them get started. We saw less people using old designs, and now there was a source of truth for them to access.
4. Office Hours
Our team hosted regular office hours for others to get feedback on designs or to present a request. This helped us manage our time better and give a predictable time and space for others to work with us.
SKILLS TO HIGHLIGHT
Working on a horizontal team
Working on the Ecosystem Lifecycle team was a unique challenge because not only did I have to do designs for our small business customers, but I also had to design for internal employees. Even though it was sometimes difficult, I learned a lot about how to collaborate cross-functionally.
Scaling yourself
I’m often tempted to do everything myself because it’s what I have most control over. However, as only one person, it takes a lot of time, and limits my expertise to only myself. I learned that good leadership is enabling others to do what they could easily do themselves.
Designing principles
Principles are often internalized by individuals or small teams, but without a shared understanding amongst an organization, decision making becomes confusing and inconsistent. Having a clear set of principles is super valuable for collaboration and having a shared vision.