Sync With PayPal
A hassle free setup to help small, mid sized companies and skilled accountants securely import PayPal transactions into Quickbooks.
the challenge
I was involved in an exciting initiative where our group, Intuit Small Business Group, partnered with PayPal to provide our customers a more efficient way to securely transfer their sale transactions from PayPal into their Quickbooks (QBO) account. The solution was Sync with Paypal, a plugin for QBO, which once is setup will automatically transfer the transactions into QBO without requiring the customer to review or approve the process.
When I joined the team, a Beta version was already out. The product manager was collecting feedback that could be used to address customer pain points and come up with a better experience. There were mainly two challenges our customers were facing:
A complicated PayPal to QBO account mapping, that resulted in significant drop off in the setting page.
A lengthy broken flow that made transferring PayPal transactions cumbersome.
my Role
I led the design of Sync with PayPal. As we addressed our customers pain-points related to the setup experience, I worked closely with all the stakeholders to manage expectations and improve collaboration.
Customer insights
I partnered with the product manager and sat with him on product feedback calls with customers. This helped us uncover customer needs and prioritize our efforts.
Coordination
I collaborated with teams within Intuit as well as PayPal to design a flawless setup experience. To make sure the designs meet quality and are consistent with design patterns I collaborated closely with the centralized design team at Intuit. In parallel I worked with developers to understand different frameworks the UI uses to understand the system constraints and propose solutions that are both desirable and feasible.
Design execution
I optimized workflows, created concepts, wireframes, high fidelity mockups consistent with the brand, guidelines.
Leadership
Presented designs to senior executives, stakeholders within Intuit and PayPal to get buy ins.
RESEARCH
Having a beta version out helped us get direct feedback from the customers. Giving designs visibility to customers early in the process helped create an environment where they openly shared their ideas and feedback. By sitting on calls with customers we realized that our customers can broadly be categorized into two groups. One being skilled accountants and other being novice users who don't have a prior experience in bookkeeping.
Meanwhile in parallel I analyzed the existing system based on the 10 heuristics of usability. As we bounced the customers between the flows of two different companies and the different supporting frameworks, we lost efficiency, flexibility and eventually the customer himself.
Analysis of existing system
Throughout the project our mantra was "Clear, intuitive, user friendly setup". We used the Laws of Simplicity to first minimizing the actual complexity followed by reducing the perceived complexity. Since small and mid sized companies being majority of our user group, we made relevant use-cases most prominent and hid the rarely used tasks so that they are available only on demand.
Multiple design iterations to explore possible solutions.
Once the customer finishes his setup he will land on the sales transactions page. Initially there won't be any transactions to be displayed and he will be presented with a blank slate that will help him explore the available functionalities and take the first few steps. If in case he has not set up PayPal for expenses and bank transactions he is given an entry point to the flow.
Sales transactions in QuickBooks
I closely collaborated with content writer and dev team to refine the designs. I made sure that the tone of the verbiage and the interaction patterns used is consistent with the rest of the system.
Design specs to obtain consistent and pixel perfect implementation.
APP REVIEWS
The improved version of the the app received both positive and negative reviews. Users reacted well to the new setup and the ability to control the time period of transactions being imported. Most of the grievances were related to the accuracy and data transfer - mostly issues part of ongoing improvements.
