Building Franklin, a Web3 payroll suite as a solo designer
The concept of Franklin is straightforward: increase Web3 adoption by integrating crypto into paychecks.
As the founding product designer, I took the project from concept to launch. This involved defining user flows based on research, leading user testing, and delivering high-fidelity prototypes for the MVP. The MVP design helped Franklin secure more investors and close a $2.9 million seed round.
Timeline
2022 (6 months)
Platform
Desktop app
Team
1 Product designer (me), CEO, 3 Devs, customer success manager
Role
Founding Product Designer
Solution
Onboarding: Easily onboard and manage employees and contractors through a simple process flow.
Off-cycle payroll: Pay your employees outside of your typical payroll schedule by making an off-cycle payment.
Connect your wallet: Toggle between Admin & Personal payroll tabs by re-connecting your wallet.
How might we revolutionize the US payroll industry with blockchain technology?
Process
Information architecture
Payroll IA: This is the flow for the payroll tab. Prior to starting design, it was essential to map out the entire user journey to catch any inconsistencies and potential pitfalls in the system.
Admin set up IA: This is the flow for the admin side of the portal and we wanted to establish this user journey as the first step of building out the product because the user starts with the admin portal.
Iterations
The initial approach was to put everything up that we need to on the screen (must haves vs. nice to haves) and while it was overwhelming, I found it easier to remove content than to add it back. We did rounds of testing to see how users interacted with the preliminary information presented to them.
❌ Users would like ways to filter
❌ Collapsable Navigation
❌ Modal is not the best usage here
✅ Better layout and visuals
✅ Tree Navigation, more visuals
✅ Improvement on previous iterations
User testing
For the initial rounds of user testing, it was important for us to get feedback as early as possible. We utilized Maze to conduct usability testing for the admin onboarding session.
Ideally, it would be better to speak with users and monitor their testing live through video, but due to timeline constraints, Maze was the logical choice in order to get timely feedback.
Final designs leveraged Tailwind components for quicker implementation.
Main user flow (the happy path)
Is it accessible?
One of the main challenges for UI is working with the existing color palette. The vibrant tones were hard to incorporate while passing accessibility and below are failed examples in terms of accessibility.
What users said:
❌ ”Seems more like a gaming platform or something "funky" to me vs. a payroll application.
❌ “Feels too grey. Makes me want to do payroll even less.”
✅ ”Dark is great, but since everything is orange, it's hard to pick out the attention pieces.”
What’s next?
Franklin 2.0 - Taking the feedback received during beta testing, we are continuously improving the onboarding experience to reduce user churn rates and increase product adoption.