Time-Tracking SaaS App
Exploring SaaS businesses to scale
As a Product Designer, I supported the design of a SaaS app tailored for billing activities in technical service projects, providing blueprints, UX insights, and prototypes to bridge the gap between billing and client relations.
Problem Statement
Consultancy billing can be complex, depending on the project type, budget, and resources. There is an absence of software tools that catered to varied, project-specific billing needs, prompting the necessity for a tailored SaaS solution, built for agencies by an agency.
TEAM COMPOSITION
1 Product Designer
3 Software Engineers
1 Technical Writer
MY Impact
Created information architecture maps and flows
Designed wireframes and mockups for implementation
Ideated on innovative ways to charge for services
A Tailored Billing Experience
Identifying a gap in the market for precise and project-specific time-tracking tools, our team aimed to design a web application tailored to our consultancy's unique billing needs, and hopefully help other agencies as well. While there were established players like Harvest offering similar time-tracking solutions, the costs associated with them and the lack of features tailored to our specific requirements propelled us to innovate.
Cross-functional Initiatives
I worked with our cross-functional team of software engineers and a technical writer to create a SaaS product and work through the nuances and business case of creating a scalable app.
As a team that was spread across disparate client projects, it was nice to work on a product together. We wanted to build an application that catered to hourly billing and seamlessly integrated retainer-based billing methods on a per-person or per-role basis, enabling a more customized and cost-effective solution. We envisioned ourselves using the app and built features that we would use from day one. Onboarding a client, setting up a project with the people on the team, and figuring out budgeting and billing were top of mind.
Branding and Visual Design
Lesson Learned
Designing a specialized tool demands a deep understanding of the niche requirements, and while pre-existing solutions can provide a starting point, innovation is key to addressing specific pain points effectively. To be creative in the approach, I leveraged competitors' apps and ideated on where they fell short.
Building a brand that resonated with our target audience of agency owners was pivotal. Our goal was to create an identity that portrayed reliability, sophistication, and ease of use. This started with the name; our entire team tried to develop an app name that conveyed time tracking with service delivery. My colleague came up with HourHand, a play on words that worked on various levels. The simple, catchy name played a role in the UI/UX design.
I meticulously worked on the visual design elements, choosing a color palette and typography that represented these attributes. Ensuring consistency across all touchpoints, from logos to the UI elements, we crafted a brand identity that was both memorable and reflective of our core values. I designed the logo to be familiar, representing the simplicity of a Google service.
Finding Product-Market Fit
Traditional billing systems often fell short of addressing specific challenges, particularly when it came to diverse billing modalities. These challenges weren't just unique to our organization; they represented a broader industry pain point. We required validation to ensure our assumptions were valid.
Research and Innovation
In a startup environment or in working on a new app idea, finding product-market fit is imperative; we can create new features but they are expensive and may not hit the mark. This is where Design Thinking methodologies come into play.
We collaborated with multiple agencies, gathering insights, gauging responses, and assessing the real-world viability of our solution. While the core functionalities were carved out of our own needs, our vision was to incorporate scalable ideas into the platform. We sought to craft an experience that focused on managing intricate client portfolios and budgets while balancing the generation of insightful reports and allowing for task-specific rate adjustments. Our goal was to deliver a product that surpassed our individual needs and found resonance across the industry.
My goal with the design of the app was to create an extensible interface that could grow in complexity to meet the unique needs of the end users, whether they are consultants or freelancers. By leveraging an editable table with input fields, an individual contributor or team lead could easily punch in hours or deliverables as line items, in a matter of seconds, to then bill against.
Designing Important Features
Leveraging the power and flexibility of the Antd design system, my vision was to create an application that was both visually appealing and functionally robust. Beneath its sleek exterior, the application was a powerhouse of features, each designed to cater to the multifaceted needs of the users. My design efforts revolved around user-centricity, where I aimed to simplify complexities, and this was evident in features like the inline grid time entries. Time entry, a core feature, allowed users to log hours and modify their inputs, ensuring alignment with specific deliverables. What could have been a cumbersome process was transformed into an effortless, intuitive experience, underscoring my commitment to usability.
An App in Development
This SaaS application, tailored though it was to our unique challenges, showcased a sense of potential. Our continuing efforts to refine and augment its capabilities show our commitment to excellence. This SaaS app is a testament to our ability to address niche challenges and a beacon for future innovations in the realm of technical consultancy tools.
Outcomes and results
Through dedicated product design efforts, I successfully designed a responsive SaaS web application that addressed niche billing challenges, underscoring the value of tailored solutions in an oversaturated market.
Disclaimer: Work shown was created while employed at Nearby Creative and displayed with permission. Header image from Unsplash.
