Questionnaire

→ Lead Product Designer
→ Jan - May 2021

About

I worked as a freelance designer for a YC backed startup, Lawyaw (acq’d by Clio), to create a comprehensive legal client intake solution from 0 to 1.

Team

Lead Product Designer (Me)
Product Manger (CEO)
Engineer lead
UX researcher
Lawyer in residence
Product specialist

About the company

Lawyaw is a vertical SaaS platform focus on legal document automation.

It helps legal practices streamline information gathering and document assembly by offering auto-fill court forms and finish built-in eSign.

Problem

The Lawyaw product has been used by thousands of legal professionals to generate legal documents automatically, however, the challenge remains in the procedure of attorneys getting information from their clients. Currently, this part of the process is still manual and time-consuming.

Goal

In order to make the client intake process more efficient and reduce errors, the team wanted to build a digital client intake solution to allow law firms to easily collect information from their clients, and to be able to use the submitted information to auto-populate their legal documents.

Process overview

Two sides of users

Paralegal / Attorney

Painpoints:

  • Back-and-forth communication with clients.

  • Chasing clients for necessary information.

  • Repetitive data entry, sometimes leading to errors.

  • Managing multiple cases.

Legal client

Painpoints:

  • Back-and-forth communication with lawyers due to misunderstandings regarding legal terms or requirements.

  • Not being informed of the current process.

  • Dealing with emotional stress from the entire legal process.

Design from 0 to 1

Here are the steps I took to design a brand new product:

STEP 1

Understand the design space

I use various methods to explore the design space: Understanding the existing platform and industry flow, gathering personas, user stories, and conducting competitor research.

STEP 2

High-level structure planning

I mapped out all the information architecture and high-level interaction map first. I then reviewed and iterated them with stakeholders to ensure compatibility with the existing platform.

STEP 3

Think through end customer experience

After the high-level planning, I started define the end customer experience (questionnaire display) and identify the necessary components for the questionnaire.

STEP 4

Define detailed interaction

I worked backward to determine the interaction design for the questionnaire builder.

User feedback and iterations

After creating the initial wireframes, I developed mid-fidelity prototypes and conducted usability testing with several users. Some feedback and subsequent iterations as follows:

BEFORE

Creating an auto-mapping questionnaire wasn't clear since there were too much information on a single screen.

AFTER

I broke down the process into multiple steps and added visual & textual aids to help users understand what it means to 'Map to documents'

BEFORE

Configuring logic jumps was complex, requiring users to manually select multiple parameters to achieve the desired outcome.

AFTER

I simplified the choices users have to make and displayed all the conditions upfront, so they don't need to worry or overthink the settings. Users can simply choose the question to skip to, and it's done.

BEFORE

The design with multiple tabs didn't provide a clear overview of all the collected responses.

AFTER

Instead of tabs, I introduced status labels and filters, giving users better visibility and control over the way they prefer to view questionnaire responses.

Final solution highlight

Centralized template management

I designed a brand new questionnaire page that allows users to create and manage a list of their questionnaire templates.

The killer feature here is the ability to automatically generate a questionnaire using the law firm’s existing legal templates. This way, attorneys are able to seamlessly integrate the client information they need into the questionnaire.

Powerful questionnaire builder

The Questionnaire Builder is a fully functional tool that empowers users to create and customize their desired questionnaires, offering a range of features, including:

  • Adding, editing, or changing questions

  • Reordering questions through drag-and-drop

  • Including text and video instructions

  • Setting skip logic

  • Mapping document fields

  • Viewing mapped document

Users can also send the questionnaire to designated clients and manage questionnaire responses in one place.

Easy-to-use questionnaire display

Questionnaire Display is the client-facing product that provides an intuitive questionnaire input experience with direct support from attorneys.

Legal clients can receive guidance from text and video instructions. Additionally, they have the option to contact attorneys directly if needed.

© Jen Hsieh 2023