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UX Audit: Accounting Workflows

I audited every accounting workflow and turned hundreds of issues into a roadmap the product team used to ship fixes.

AllAccounting workflows audited
12Design categories
100sIssues documented
01 / Context

Measuring where things stood

Modernized Accounting is the set of dealership accounting workflows, from GL posting to payments, that CDK moved onto Radial and into Unify. Before anyone could bring it up to standard, someone had to measure where it actually stood. I ran the audit to answer three questions: are these workflows following Radial, how much design debt is there, and how consistent is the experience from one workflow to the next?

02 / Method

Every screen, against the same 12 lenses

I reviewed every workflow screen by screen, in production and pre-production, and scored each one against the same categories so the findings could be compared and acted on.

TablesDropdownsFiltersWayfindingSide sheetsButtonsSpacingModalsResponsivenessAccessibilityIA and namingGeneral issues
Audit board with every workflow captured screen by screen
Every workflow reviewed screen by screen, with notes by category
03 / Findings

What I found

Features had been built fast and without reference to each other. The result functioned, but felt like a collection of loosely related tools.

Three design systems in one product

Different workflows were built on different generations of Radial and older UI kits.

Same problem, solved differently

Tables, filters and side sheets each had several versions with no shared standard.

Components drifted off standard

The design system existed, but customizations meant it wasn't being followed.

No responsive design

Nothing adapted below desktop width, a real gap for a product inside Unify.

04 / The roadmap

A roadmap for the product team

I turned hundreds of notes into a clear set of design requirements, grouped by category. I framed it deliberately: it points to what needs to change and why, and leaves the how to the product team, who know the implementation constraints best.

Audit notes grouped into findings by category
Hundreds of notes grouped into findings by category
05 / Outcome

The audit became the brief

The product team took on the requirements as a formal body of work in the next program increment, and the fixes shipped. The workflows are now more consistent with each other and with Radial.

BeforeAfter
Hundreds of undocumented inconsistenciesEvery issue categorized and documented
No baseline or plan to fix itClear requirements for each category
Three design systems in one productFixes shipped, bringing the workflows in line with Radial
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