Redesigning the Accountant's

Digital Workflow

Brought in as a product designer to revolutionize how accountants interact with their work — through a smarter inbox and an automated digital advisor built for the people who make tax season run.

Product Designer Feature Design Inbox & Organizer User Research Information Architecture Competitive Analysis

Overview

The Problem

Digilence is a new webapp looking to revolutionize the tax industry — but not for filers. For accountants. The core insight driving the product: a normal accounting workflow takes far too long, and the tools available weren't built with that user in mind.

I was brought in to design and iterate on two key areas: the user's inbox and a digital organizer called the "advisor" — a space where automation and clarity could give accountants back their time, especially during the brutal stretch of tax season.

Design opportunity: Create accommodating, streamlined features on a dashboard platform — influenced by project management and email software — that give users an organized, modern experience without the chaos of busy season.

Discovery & Research

Understanding the Users

Before designing anything, I reviewed the industry landscape, existing user flows, and the range of people who would actually touch this platform. Six distinct user types emerged, each with very different needs and levels of platform involvement.

Tax admin

The day-to-day user. Generally older, predominantly women, low tech exposure. Used to Excel and repetitive workflows. Tax deadlines mean 80-hour weeks — they need relief, not more complexity.

Tax leader

Partners or directors in the firm. Focused on growth, overall performance, and managing the tax admins below them. Need visibility without noise.

CIO

Cares about platform performance, security, and IT admin tools. Not interested in day-to-day productivity features — needs control at a system level.

CEO / Managing Partner

Focused entirely on firm performance — metrics, financials, big-picture tax outcomes. No interest in daily operational functions.

Digilence customer support

A Digilence employee who needs visibility into all user types to provide effective support across the platform.

Digilence administrator

Handles security functions — adding and removing accounts, updating configurations. Needs elevated system access beyond any end user.

Competitive Analysis

What Already Works

The client came in with a strong instinct: project management tools used by tech teams make users feel informed and in control, in both automated and manual contexts. That led me to a deep look at Monday.com's UI.

1The "learn and get inspired" section mapped closely to the digital advisor flow we were building — a widget-based assistant surfacing relevant actions
2"Search anything" as a universal entry point — quickly reaching any person or document without navigating menus
3Clean, modern tables and logs that feel nothing like a traditional calendar or static page
4Inbox view options on the right rail — a way to sort and customize mail by type (automated vs. client request)

I also pulled from tools accountants already know well — Microsoft Outlook and Teams. These platforms do one thing exceptionally: show sender, subject, and a content preview at a glance. That familiarity matters when your users are not early adopters.

Information Architecture

Open Questions Going into Design

After reviewing user flows and competitive platforms, I came out of discovery with a set of design questions I needed to answer before moving into visual design. These shaped the information architecture phase.

?How are new clients added to the platform?

?Is there a purpose for reporting beyond the CEO and portfolio team?

?Does a tax calendar belong inside this experience?

?What is the distinction between a workflow and a task?

?How are PBC checklists handled — imported, or sent directly to clients?

?What triggers alerts at the tax or client level?

?How do we empower and educate each user type differently?

?How are teams being managed within the platform?

With user types mapped, competitive influences defined, and key questions surfaced, I moved into user flows and information architecture — structuring the ideal experience before any visual design began.

You Can Try Out The Interactive Prototype Experience Here

Skills & Methods

How I Worked

User journey mapping Competitive analysis Information architecture User flow design Feature design Inbox UX Digital advisor flow Dashboard design Stakeholder research Legacy user empathy