Spearhead Digital Transformation Project: UltraTax CS and Checkpoint Discover pages

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Project Type: UX Design and Research, Visual Design, Interaction Design, Responsive Web Design

Software: Sketch, Zeplin, Invision, Adobe XD, Illustrator, Photoshop

View in action: UltraTax CS Checkpoint

Explore Research: Request Here

The Spearhead Digital Transformation Project was high-profile initiative in the company pulling together the best and brightest from each department for one year to jump-start the company’s digital initiatives, specifically the customer purchase, onboarding and renewal experience. Within this large project, there were several smaller initiatives tackled over the course of three 16-22 week waves. The UltraTax CS and Checkpoint discover marketing pages were one of those initiatives.

THE Spearhead TEAM

Digital Spearhead was an umbrella term used at Thomson Reuters to refer to all of the digital transformation projects taking place around the business as a whole. More specifically, I was a part of the TRTA Tax Professionals Digital Spearhead Core team and later joined the TRTA Tax Professionals Digital Spearhead Operate team. Our group was a global team spread over six offices in addition to our partnership with the McKinsey & Company consulting firm who joined us for the first two waves of the project. The roles of members on the team included: A Journey Lead, two Product Owners, two scrum masters, a Navigator, a Tech Lead with teams of both Front-end and Back-end Developers, a Content team with two writers of different customer segment specialties, a marketing team that included content strategists, marketing managers, developers, data analysts, writers, a video production, a dedicated Sales SME , a dedicated Customer Support SME, and a UX team (there were four of us in total), in addition to our McKinsey counterparts and stakeholders.

TARGET USERS

The target users for TRTA Tax Professionals were tax and accounting professionals within the small-medium firm size range. Typical roles of our users could be firm owners, CPAs, or office managers. The firms in this segment include sole proprietors and firms up to fifteen employees.

Proprietary information has been redacted

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MY Role: Design and Research

I was the Lead UXer responsible for the research, design and implementation of the UltraTax CS and Checkpoint pages. I was the point person collaborating with content writers, the marketing team, doing QA with developers, testing the site in our demo environment before going to production, I reported user testing results and research to C-suite leadership every two weeks, and later took over site maintenance when both pages went live. Additionally, I was expected to scope, write and create acceptance criteria for my design and research stories in our Agile project management software and attend all Agile trainings, ceremonies, and demos.

Preparing research findings from Synergy 2018 to share with stakeholders and core team

Process Work

Below you will see examples of my iterative design process and research report excerpts that lead to the final deliverables. My favorite methods of design are whiteboarding, sketching and trying out as many options as I can possibly explore in either Sketch, Adobe XD, Axure or Photoshop depending on the intended output. Many of the process photos are the outcome of pair design sessions or brainstorming with other members of the Spearhead team. We were in constant communication throughout the day, regardless of location.

Marketing Page Thumbnail Sketch

Screenshot of Marketing Page's Sketch File

This shows a variety of small tweaks and iterations considering the quiz feature on the page. We continued to run into usability issues with this portion of the page because of inconsistent copy and interaction patterns.

Screenshot of Zeplin project

Zeplin was the main tool we used to share out our designs with other teammates. Copywriters would leave copy in WIP designs and when a design was ready to be built, the developers would use these screens as the redline specs.

Sample Design Story

Here is an example of a typical design story I might have during a sprint. I would scope the work, write the acceptance criteria, was responsible to for showing progress, updating the finished story with completed designs and following up with developers to ensure the design was completed to spec.

User Testing Report Excerpt - Task

Here is an example of what a slide about a task from a user test report out would look like. I find it important to be 100% transparent with stakeholders about the success or failure of tasks on in a user test. It shows vulnerability, builds trust that I am not just telling them the warm fuzzies, and shows we have the capacity to adapt quickly to improve sprint over sprint.

User Testing Report Excerpt - Reccomendations

Here is an example of what a final slide of a user testing research report would cover. I usually recap the findings and offer thoughts on how to move forward with next steps for UX in the coming sprint.