From Chaos to Clarity: The Dashboard That boosted Accountants Productivity

Client

Practice Evolve

Overview

Practice Evolve is a legal and accounting platform built for mid-to-large law firms. Their accounting dashboard, while feature-rich, had become cluttered and unintuitive—slowing down core financial workflows and frustrating users.

Through in-depth user research and structured UX audits, we identified key friction points and uncovered how they were impacting productivity.

The redesign aimed to declutter the interface, reduce manual navigation and streamline high-priority actions with how accountants actually work. The results: faster task completion, fewer support tickets, clearer reporting, and a more focused, efficient experience across the board.

The Challenge

Inefficiencies in the old dashboard forced accountants to spend extra time on routine tasks

Navigation Ineficiencies

Important features were buried in menus, increasing task time unnecessarily.

"Honestly, the first thing I do every day is check for unreconciled items — but it’s buried. I have to click through a bunch of screens just to find it. I’d love it if that number was just... right there when I log in."

Patrick S

Senior Accountant at Auli***

Navigation Ineficiencies

Important features were buried in menus, increasing task time unnecessarily.

Patrick S

Senior Accountant at Auli***

Navigation Ineficiencies

Important features were buried in menus, increasing task time unnecessarily.

Patrick S

Senior Accountant at Auli***

Poor Readability

Unclear hierarchy and heavy content slowed users down and added friction to simple tasks.

Creditors as well as Profit & Loss widgets are all in boxes and colors, but nothing really stands out. I have to read every label just to understand what I’m looking at.

Sarah G

Financial Collector at beno***

Poor Readability

Unclear hierarchy and heavy content slowed users down and added friction to simple tasks.

Creditors as well as Profit & Loss widgets are all in boxes and colors, but nothing really stands out. I have to read every label just to understand what I’m looking at.

Sarah G

Financial Collector at beno***

Poor Readability

Unclear hierarchy and heavy content slowed users down and added friction to simple tasks.

Creditors as well as Profit & Loss widgets are all in boxes and colors, but nothing really stands out. I have to read every label just to understand what I’m looking at.

Sarah G

Financial Collector at beno***

Low User Adoption

Unused widgets and bloated layouts cluttered the interface and added no real value.

"I don’t understand why there are two widgets for Office and Trust journals. 9 times out of 10, Legal firms will only have one for each, so I end up removing them because they just take up space."

Evan W

Accounting Manager at Bick***

Low User Adoption

Unused widgets and bloated layouts cluttered the interface and added no real value.

"I don’t understand why there are two widgets for Office and Trust journals. 9 times out of 10, Legal firms will only have one for each, so I end up removing them because they just take up space."

Evan W

Accounting Manager at Bick***

Low User Adoption

Unused widgets and bloated layouts cluttered the interface and added no real value.

"I don’t understand why there are two widgets for Office and Trust journals. 9 times out of 10, Legal firms will only have one for each, so I end up removing them because they just take up space."

Evan W

Accounting Manager at Bick***

Operational Impact

Inefficiencies drove up support queries, slowed workflows, and increased wasted effort. The dashboard was one of the top sources of support tickets

Out of 49 active tickets, 13 were related to the dashboard — the highest count, tied with billing

Dashboard

Billing

Accounts

Matters

Others

Phase 2: Research & Synthesis

User's Painpoints Findings

Before redesigning, we needed to understand not just what was broken, but how it disrupted real workflows. By mapping daily tasks, reviewing analytics, and gathering user feedback, we uncovered key inefficiencies—like mental fatigue from cluttered layouts, time lost in repetitive navigation, and overreliance on support for basic actions.

To validate and deepen our understanding, we conducted focused research and this was our overview findings:

Low Dashboard Interaction

Via User Interview

It was revealed that 5 out of 10 users reported they don’t interact with the dashboard because they feel it doesn’t offer anything of value to them.

Low Dashboard Average Time Per User

Via Behavioural Analytics (Clarity)

Over the last 30 days, users spent an average of 10 minutes and 38 seconds on the dashboard — just 20 seconds a day, signaling low engagement with a screen intended to drive daily action.

🕒 Our Dashboard

10m 38s

21.3s p/d

V.s

🕒 Rival Dashboard

32m

Increase Feature Requests

Via Support Ticket Analysis

Surfaced recurring UI complaints that pointed to navigation pain points, usability gaps and multiple widget/feature requests.

I can't Configure the widget to see the number of outstanding items to reconcile, is this going to be added later?

Freshdesk

I can't configure the widget to see the number of outstanding items to reconcile, is this going to be added later? Would make life easier.

Freshdesk

Low Dashboard Interaction

Via Behavioural Analytics (Clarity)

The Dashboard tab received only 6% of all navigation clicks, making it the second least-used section of the app — just above “Settings.

🔻 Dashboard

6/100 Clicks

Phase 3: UI Audit

Diagnosis

Additionally, I began with a comprehensive UI audit to identify immediate usability flaws and design inconsistencies that might be contributing to user frustration. This audit was instrumental in highlighting both visual and interaction-level issues.

Weak Visual Hierarchy

Key financial metrics were not visually distinguished from less important content. As a result, users had to scan through dense layouts to find critical data, and sometimes even struggled to read some elements.

Low Contrast

Unclear Priority

Inconsistent UI Pattern

Buttons, filters, and labels lacked uniform styling and placement, causing users to reorient themselves on every screen.

Unclear Clickable Components

Inconsistent Widget Icons

Poor Data Visualisation

The Profit & Loss chart and Debtor/Creditor widget suffer from poor data visualisation, making it hard to extract meaningful insights. Key metrics like the displayed $2k are ambiguous, with no labels or tooltips to clarify whether it's income, profit, or something else.

Unclear Data Visualisation

Ambiguous Metrics Display

Unclear Empty State

The Creditors widget presents a poor empty state, offering no context, guidance, or visual cues. The absence of data explanation, feedback, or purposeful action leaves users uncertain about what’s missing or what to do next, reducing the clarity and usefulness of the section.

Lack Of Clarity

None Existing Emotional Engagement

Phase 4: Defining The Solution

Finding Solution

So now that we figured out all the issues and problems, how do we move forward?

During our user interviews we asked various questions to get a sense of what these "Daily" tasks look like from an accountant's perspective. We broke it down into what they want to do vs what they want to see:

What Users Want To Do

Approve/Reject Requests

Ability to see any outstanding requests that require approval or rejection.

Reconcile Transactions

Ability to reconcile transactions to ensure the firm has a complete and accurate picture of its cash flow.

Debt Recovery

Ability to follow up with clients who have outstanding balances in order to recover debts.

What Users Want To See

Account Balance Movement

Ability to monitor incoming and outgoing funds to ensure there are no irregularities in cash flow.

Aged Creditor/Debtors

See how much the firm owes to others and who those creditors are, as well as how much is owed to the firm and by which clients.

Scheduled Reports & Activities

Ability to view scheduled reports and email activity, including recipients and any delivery failures.

Phase 5: The Redesign

Applying The Solution

Our design strategy focused on removing friction, reducing cognitive load, and making the dashboard more intuitive for daily accounting workflows. Each decision was grounded in user data and tested iteratively to ensure measurable improvements in speed and satisfaction.

Clear Visual Hierarchy

We restructured the layout to surface the most critical metrics at a glance, applying consistent spacing, font weights, and colour contrast. This helped users scan for insights faster, improving task confidence and reducing the time spent searching for information.

Stronger Visual Contrast

Clearer Priority

Streamlined Task Execution

We revamped key widgets like Cash Accounts, Aged Debtors/Creditors to centralise key information and actions, reducing friction and enabling faster task completion.

Reduced Friction

Faster Task Completion

New Widgets - More Efficiency

We introduced two new widgets; (1) Watchlist lets users action outstanding requests immediately. (2) Scheduled displays all automated reports sent to clients or suppliers, along with delivery status.

New Scheduled Widget

New Watchlist Widget

Better Data Visualisation

To reduce confusion, we replaced cash account visuals with daily line charts for clearer balance tracking. Aged Debtors and Creditors now use horizontal stacked bar charts to clearly show amounts by 30, 60, 90, and 90+ day brackets — a change driven by strong user demand.

Reduced Friction

Faster Task Completion

Phase 6: The Impact

User Impact

250% +

User Engagement

Better adoption of key tools due to an increase of the average monthly time spent per user from 4.3 minutes to 12.5 minutes

200% +

Reconciliations Completed

Quick access reduced friction resulting in firms reconciliation completion per week increasing from 0.97 to 2.1.

4 hours +

Time Saved Per Week

Clearer reporting and tracked saved ~ 3–4 hours/week by highlighting sent and failed statements runs.

40%

Fast Debtor Follow Ups

Simplified layouts reduced number of clicks to follow up debtors from 5 to just 3, making it easier to track payments in less time.

39%

Fewer Dashboard Tickets

Reduced navigation issues has dropped the monthly average tickets from 13 to 8 related to dashboard area.

16%

Higher User Satisfaction

More intuitive and efficient experience lead to a rise in CSAT from 68% to 84% after updates that reduced friction and frustration.

Conclusion

Key Takeaways & Learnings

In our recent design overhaul, we focused on creating a more intuitive, efficient, and scalable user experience. By aligning our decisions with clear objectives and measurable outcomes, we achieved significant improvements across key areas:

Simplify decision-making

Prioritizing key metrics upfront led to faster, data-driven insights.

Visual clarity drives engagement

Intuitive layouts increased adoption and user satisfaction.

Reduce friction to boost efficiency

Clarity over clutter streamlines work and saves time

Data-backed storytelling wins

Showing measurable impact strengthened stakeholder buy-in.

Streamlined internal operations

A refined design system cut dev time, clarified insights, and reduced support needs.

From Chaos to Clarity: The Dashboard That boosted Accountants Productivity

The Challenge

Inefficiencies in the old dashboard forced accountants to spend extra time on routine tasks

User's Painpoints Findings

Diagnosis

Finding Solution

Applying The Solution

User Impact

250% +

200% +

4 hours +

40%

39%

16%

Key Takeaways & Learnings

More works