Making Every Billable Hour Count on Bill4Time
I led a 4-month redesign of Bill4Time, a time and billing solution for law firms, focused on enhancing the time-tracking experience to make it more efficient and user-friendly. My design process involved extensive user research to identify pain points and gather insights, which informed the creation of a calendar view for monthly tracking, bulk editing capabilities, and clear billing status indicators. Utilizing Figma for design and collaborating closely with developers throughout the process, I aimed to create a seamless user experience. The redesign successfully increased user adoption by 20% and reduced customer churn by 12% within the first quarter post-launch, showcasing the effectiveness of a user-centered design approach in addressing client needs.
Timeline
6-8 weeks
Team
Product Manager
VP of Product
Five Software Developers
Role
User Research
Data Analysis
Design
Prototyping
Iterative Testing
Optimization
Tools
Figma
Maze
Mix Panel
Notabily.ai
Challenge
Lawyers and administrative staff using Bill4Time were spending over five hours per week manually tracking time, leading to productivity loss. Additionally, attorneys handling multiple cases struggled with reviewing and ensuring the accuracy of their logged hours before submission.
Limited Time Tracking Capabilities
The existing Bill4Time system restricted time and expense tracking to a weekly grid format, making it difficult for legal professionals to efficiently log, review, and manage their hours. This created inefficiencies, as most law firms operate on a monthly billing cycle and have specific hourly targets to meet.
Solution
We revamped the time tracking experience with a monthly calendar view, bulk editing, and enhanced filters for better efficiency. Clear visual indicators improve billing accuracy, while performance optimizations speed up large data handling. An interactive onboarding guide ensures seamless adoption.
Understanding the Current Landscape
As the lead designer, I analyzed the existing time-tracking UI, identifying issues like an ineffective weekly view graph, hidden filters, and outdated table layouts. My process involved highlighting inefficiencies and areas for improvement, such as better navigation and clearer action buttons. I aimed to enhance usability and streamline workflows for users.
Research
To better understand user challenges, we conducted comprehensive research that included:
User Interviews: Spoke with law firm professionals to uncover pain points in their time-tracking workflow.
Survey Analysis: Gathered user feedback on the existing time entry process.
Competitive Benchmarking: Compared Bill4Time’s capabilities with industry leaders like Clio, MyCase, Caret Legal and Cosmolex
Most Frequent users of Time tracking were Senior Paralegals and Associate Attorneys
Uncovering the Gaps: Why Lawyers Struggled with Time Tracking
“I’d love the ability to select multiple time entries and update them all at once. The bulk entry feature would be lifesaver—I wish I could use it for more tasks.”
- Jenna Ali, Associate Attorney at RMY Law Group.
Our research revealed several pain points that hindered lawyers in their daily workflow
Our Solution: A More Flexible and Efficient Time-Tracking Experience
Based on our research, we redesigned Bill4Time’s time entry system with a more intuitive and streamlined approach:
Introduced a Calendar View – Users can now track time across a month instead of being limited to a weekly grid, making it easier to review progress and spot missing entries.
Bulk Editing Capabilities – Users can select multiple time entries and make updates in one action, significantly reducing manual work.
Improved Visual Indicators – Introduced clear billed vs. unbilled status indicators to improve billing accuracy.
Enhanced Filters – Enabled multi-user selection, so firms can view time entries for specific individuals or teams.
Performance Optimization – Reduced page load time by 40% for users handling over 500 time entries.
Appcues Walkthrough for Onboarding – Added interactive guidance to help users adopt the new workflow quickly.
Time Calendar View provides an at-a-glance overview of billable and non-billable hours for lawyers
The Time Calendar View provides lawyers with a clear, at-a-glance overview of their billable and non-billable hours, helping them stay productive and maximize efficiency. With quick actions, they can seamlessly add time entries on the fly, ensuring no billable hour goes untracked.
Time Expense Grid Layout
The Time & Expense Grid gives users a comprehensive view of all their time entries, including billable and non-billable hours, in one centralized place. Designed for efficiency, the optimized grid layout allows users to scan and manage a large volume of entries at once, making time tracking faster.
The calendar date that has alert icon lets the lawyers know at a glance their are no entries added on this date. This prevents them from ever missing an entry.
A/B Testing
We tested landing page screens in both light and dark mode and found that engineering managers, developers, and PMs in tech gravitated towards the dark theme, which made them want to try the product out and sign up for Tara.
Learnings and Takeaways
Landing pages should focus on a singular goal of receiving marketing campaign traffic and converting viewers into registered users.
It’s easier to capture conversions from a well-designed landing page than from a homepage because they have one singular goal. There is less noise to distract viewers.
To help promote a positive first impression, we need to understand user intent and personalize the experience based on the marketing channel and keywords.
Even small changes in messaging, and content placement can significantly impact conversions. For example, a headline is one of the first impressions and making it clear, attention-grabbing, and reflecting the purpose can make a significant impact.
Using the right CTA is very important for landing pages, and having one primary CTA can boost conversions.
One of the big triggers for abandonment is asking for too much information at the start, and limiting what we ask for on the landing page can reduce drop-offs.
Working on this project reminded me how collaborative design is and requires various people and teams to come together to create a great product and drive growth.
Data-driven design based on user flow and A/B testing results can drive significant value for customers and businesses.
12
Interviews
40
Usability Testing
10
Iterations
+30%
Conversion Improvement