I joined DAKCS as the first and only UX Designer with the goal of establishing UX as a core strength of the company. Over the 40-year history at DAKCS, the product line had grown to a full suite for managing Accounts Receivable. Many of these products were showing their age and growing stagnant. I knew that UX would play a major role in improving the existing products as well as in developing new solutions for new markets.
To build the foundation, I drastically revised the visual identity and provided new brand guidelines as well as component-based design systems for the product line. I used the style guide to craft numerous marketing assets including a new corporate site. I used the design systems and new processes at DAKCS to create a UI overlay for a legacy product as well as to launch a brand new product.
From the very beginning it was vital to help the company understand the full value of UX design thinking. It's not about making products look good, but rather about leveraging the design process to identify the right solution, connect with users, improve outcomes, and drive the strategic product vision. Essentially, my goal was to help DAKCS achieve level 5 on the Design Maturity Model.
It's about leveraging the design process to identify the right solution and drive the strategic vision.
I joined DAKCS as the first and only UX Designer with the goal of establishing UX as a core strength of the company. Over the 40-year history at DAKCS, the product line had grown to a full suite for managing Accounts Receivable. Many of these products were showing their age and growing stagnant. The team wanted to refresh the products as well as innovate and develop new solutions for new markets. I knew that UX could play a key part in that effort.
Early on it was vital to help the company understand the full value of UX design thinking. It's not about making products look good, but rather about leveraging the design process to identify the right solution, connect with users, improve outcomes, and drive the strategic product vision. Essentially, my goal was to help DAKCS achieve level 5 on the Design Maturity Model.
It's about leveraging the design process to identify the right solution and drive the strategic vision.
To build the foundation, I drastically revised the visual identity and provided new brand guidelines as well as component-based design systems for the product line. I used the style guide to craft numerous marketing assets including a new corporate site. I used the design systems and new processes at DAKCS to create a UI overlay for a legacy product as well as to launch a brand new product.
I joined DAKCS as the first and only UX Designer with the goal of establishing UX as a core strength of the company. Over the 40-year history at DAKCS, the product line had grown to a full suite for managing Accounts Receivable. Many of these products were showing their age and growing stagnant. The team wanted to refresh the products as well as innovate and develop new solutions for new markets. I knew that UX could play a key part in that effort.
Early on it was vital to help the company understand the full value of UX design thinking. It's not about making products look good, but rather about leveraging the design process to identify the right solution, connect with users, improve outcomes, and drive the strategic product vision. Essentially, my goal was to help DAKCS achieve level 5 on the Design Maturity Model.
It's about leveraging the design process to identify the right solution and drive the strategic vision.
To build the foundation, I drastically revised the visual identity and provided new brand guidelines as well as component-based design systems for the product line. I used the style guide to craft numerous marketing assets including a new corporate site. I used the design systems and new processes at DAKCS to create a UI overlay for a legacy product as well as to launch a brand new product.
DAKCS had built a product line for a very niche industry. Unfortunately, that industry was shrinking rapidly. Low margins, consolidations, legal complexities, and a rapidly changing tech landscape meant the exponential decline would only continue into the future. In spite of the bleak outlook most of the company was very hesitant to pursue any new verticals. It was entirely up to the UX & Strategy team to identify an easy product pivot that could open up new market opportunities while using as few company resources as possible.
To kickstart this process, we formed a discovery team which initially consisted of myself and a Product Manager. We weighed dozens of new product ideas using R.I.C.E. modeling. Ultimately we chose to pursue a new billing platform. We knew that most DAKCS customers were operating inefficiently with antiquated A/R processes of mailing letters and calling consumers/patients by phone. Streamlining the online payment process had been almost entirely overlooked by DAKCS in the past.
Before designing anything we conducted immense amounts of product and market research. We performed landscape analysis and interviewed 30+ customers of existing billing portals to identify points of friction for the consumers and the service providers. We also researched average payment portal metrics like sign in conversion and payment conversion to see where improvements could be made. Our research led to several important discoveries.
In my three years at DAKCS I've gone from establishing the UX role to reshaping the visual identity and product development process to helping the company reach its first new market vertical in 40 years. It takes a village to successfully release a product, but I'm very proud of the influential role I played in its success.
