User Interviews - Requirements Gathering

I sat down with four franchise owners to better understand the day-to-day challenges of managing payments. These conversations highlighted a fragmented ecosystem:
Quantitative Insight: Owners were juggling disparate workflows across spreadsheets, accounting tools, and various payment apps.
Qualitative Insight: The real pain point wasn't just "tracking"—it was the friction caused by system silos. Users needed a single source of truth to eliminate manual data entry and finally reconcile their conflicting payment records.

High-Fidelity Concept Mockup

To help stakeholders visualize the project’s potential, I developed a high-fidelity conceptual mockup based on our core feature list. This was a tactical move to show the system's value more effectively than low-fi sketches could. By providing a tangible look at the future product, I was able to secure the "green light" and the resources needed to move into full production.

Franchisee Feedback Tour

With a solid vision in place, I took the prototype with my product manager on a cross-country tour to gather feedback from the people who would use it daily. Presenting to nearly 30 franchisees across three Canadian locations provided a wealth of insights. This allowed us to catch potential pain points points early and ensure the final system was built around real-world needs rather than assumptions.

Adapting to Evolving Requirements

After the Canadian tour, new requirements from the Finance team necessitated a pivot in the design. I led a restructuring of the system’s architecture to include 'Simple' and 'Advanced' modes, ensuring the tool remained approachable for basic users while providing depth for power users. This experience reinforced the value of building flexible design systems that can adapt to shifting business needs.

Wireframing & Technical Handoff

I used low-fidelity wireframes to rapidly build out the remaining screens, focusing on logic and data hierarchy. By delivering these as a clear technical blueprint, I gave the development team a reliable roadmap that helped streamline the handoff and keep the build on schedule.

User Navigation - Paper Prototyping

I performed an exhaustive navigation audit by mapping out the entire screen flow physically. Visualizing the system at this scale was instrumental in identifying overlooked transitions and 'dead ends.' This exercise allowed for rapid troubleshooting and ensured a seamless, intuitive experience across all user paths.

Shipping the Final Product

The transition from prototype to pilot revealed sync and performance challenges. Because the system operates online and offline, data-heavy screens caused latency. I pivoted the design to focus on performance optimization, strategically condensing data to improve load times. Over 12+ months, we successfully shipped six iterations, refining the system into a high-performance tool for our users.