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gtp: product vision
role
UX Lead: Research & Design
tools
Miro, Figma
timeline
4 sprints
year
2023
Objective
The objective of the "concept car" project was to take a holistic approach to solving critical business problems within the platform. This exercise encouraged us to remove technical limitations and confines presented by our design system. Product management (PM) wanted us to stretch our creative thinking by reducing requirements and allow us (the UX team) to present a conceptual version of GTP.
UX goals: user-friendly, visually appealing, easily navigable, and ensure a seamless experience through personalization and customization.
process
- Strategic discovery
- Define key personas
- Competitive analysis
- Ideation & Miro® brainstorming sessions
- Design sprints to iterate on critical features and enhancements
- High fidelity prototype in Figma®
Persona flows
key personas
ey engagement admin
The EY Engagement manager primarily focuses on the timely delivery of artifacts for entities in a specific country and/or region.
client user/data provider
The Client Filer or Data Provider focuses on providing deliverables for a tax filing - these include quarterly or monthly trial balances.
issues we uncovered
After talking with business representatives for EY they explained many of the primary pain points that exist in the platform with engagement managers, data providers, and client users. The following paint points were our focus:
Key themes
We derived many key themes after discussing current pain points and requirements with the PM team and several tax professionals.
ideation
We began ideating while keeping in mind our key themes. I translated the themes from earlier feedback sessions into key features that would greatly benefit our two primary personas. Some of the elements incorporated into our early iterations included:
- Automation through an AI chatbot - using existing ServiceNow technology
- New navigation that incorporates customization and key workflow items for completing tasks
- Rebranding
- Contacts section that integrates MS Teams capabilities
- Global filters that include optional client selection
Early conceptual lo-fi dashboard EY employees:
Gamification
As a bonus, we wanted to incorporate gamification into the platform for EY employees - this was deemed lower priority by the PM team, but a nice to have for future explorations. After learning the process of corporate income taxes we thought it would keep the tax professionals motivated, especially during the arduous tax season. We would leverage the existing Bravo awards that are distributed manually to employees every quarter. EY employees would automatically receive monetary rewards based on completed filings and tasks.
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final
This was a highly collaborative exercise with almost every UX team member contributing to the final prototype that was presented to product management and the GTP leadership team. Even though it was a conceptual exercise that was mostly "side of the desk" work, a lot of our solutions were used to influence future features in the GTP.
onboarding
Currently there is no onboarding experience, it's a simple username and password login screen. We created a three step process where new user's set up a workspace configured by the engagements they're assigned to. After logging in, we displayed Walkme® style guidance to increase client adoption for new features and help improve EY user's productivity.
Contacts
The updated Contacts section used Teams integration to provide a direct and convenient channel for clients to reach engagement team members. A contacts widget leveraging the existing widget framework would streamline communication with EY and client users by allowing quick access to team members on their dashboard.
Workspace
Customized workspace that displays upcoming tasks and deliverables front and center, and a curated news feed that includes pertinent tax updates that could impact their country of service. Also, we integrated a Worksmart widget - manages phases of an engagement in Sharepoint.
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Excel
Integrating Excel into the Deliverables workspace so they won't have to rely on downloading and uploading documents- currently done in Kendo grids.
AI Chatbot
In a related GTP initiative we explored integrating a ServiceNow Virtual Agent (chatbot) to improve workflow efficiency. We took it a step further by demonstrating (via Figma prototype) what it would look like to have an assistant that can mimic natural language conversations and offer useful suggestions based on the engagement work a user is assigned to. The chatbot, which we named Marvin, would have contextual awareness, capable of recalling previous conversations, and a recommendation engine utilizing machine learning to tailor responses and suggestions to the engagement properties like countries and services.
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