Xero Bills Page Redesign
Concept Project
My Role
Product Designer
Tools
Figma
Notion
Timeline
March 2025
Description
This conceptual project tackles a common pain point for small business owners: streamlining invoice management. The goal was to redesign the user experience for Xero's 'Bills to Pay' page to be more intuitive, efficient, and less prone to errors.
Overview
The core challenge was to address user frustrations with confusing bill statuses and the lack of a bulk approval feature. By exploring multiple design concepts and focusing on a user-centered solution, I aimed to create a workflow that would save users significant time, reduce the risk of late payments, and increase their overall confidence and satisfaction with the platform.
Project Highlights at a Glance
The final conceptual redesign introduced three core enhancements to solve the key user pain points:
Bulk Approval
A powerful bulk-selection feature drastically reduces repetitive clicks and saves valuable time.
Intuitive Statuses
A clear, color-coded system for bill statuses ensures users can identify urgent items at a glance.
Streamlined Layout
A new vertical navigation system declutters the interface and maximizes space for core content.
The original 'Bills to Pay' page in Xero presented several significant usability challenges for small business owners. My initial analysis, which included a heuristic review and an examination of user feedback on platforms like Trustpilot, identified several key pain points. These included a confusing use of color for bill statuses, poorly optimized table columns that made quick scanning difficult, and most critically, the lack of a bulk approval feature. This forced users into a repetitive, one-by-one approval process, wasting valuable time and increasing the risk of manual errors.
Exploring Solutions: A Trade-Off Analysis
After defining the problem, I explored three distinct concepts to address the user's pain points. Each concept represented a different level of effort and potential impact, from a minimal fix to a comprehensive redesign. This approach allowed for a strategic evaluation of the trade-offs between development cost and user value before selecting a final direction.
Concept A: The Minimal Fix
This concept focused on solving the most immediate user frustration: confusing statuses. By introducing a clear, color-coded system (amber for pending, red for overdue, green for settled) without altering the existing layout.
Pros: Low development effort; minimal disruption for current users.
Cons: Did not solve the core need for bulk approvals or improve the cluttered layout.
Concept B: The Efficiency Boost
Building on the color-coded statuses, this concept introduced checkboxes for multi-selection and an inline 'Approve' button in the table, allowing for simple bulk actions.
Pros: Drastically cut down clicks for multiple approvals; still relatively low development effort.
Cons: The horizontal space for the table remained limited, and the bulk actions could still feel clunky for high-volume users.
Concept C: The Comprehensive Redesign
This concept was a full-scale redesign that introduced a left-hand vertical navigation bar. This freed up significant horizontal space, allowing for a clearer table layout combined with the new color-coded statuses and robust bulk approval features.
Pros: Maximized clarity and efficiency; directly solved all major user complaints, including the lack of bulk actions.
Cons: Higher development effort; required users to adapt to a new layout.
The Recommended Solution: A Clear and Efficient Redesign
After analyzing the trade-offs, Concept C was chosen as the recommended solution. While it required a higher development effort, its long-term value in improving user efficiency and satisfaction was undeniable. The final design focuses on three core enhancements: a vertical navigation for a clearer layout, intuitive color-coded statuses, and a robust bulk approval system.
Conclusion & Next Steps
This conceptual redesign successfully addresses the core usability issues of Xero's 'Bills to Pay' page, creating a more efficient, clear, and user-friendly workflow. The chosen solution provides a strong foundation for long-term improvement by balancing user needs with a scalable design. If this project were to move into a real-world development cycle, the immediate next steps would involve conducting deeper user interviews on the final prototype, performance testing with large data sets, and planning for a phased rollout to gather quantitative feedback before a full launch.
© 2025 Designed by Nayan Gurung