Bolt is a project management app for freelancers and agencies/studios. Targeted towards creatives and individuals who want to do more. Bolt features invoicing, client management, proposals to managing tasks for projects.

• Client: Bolt
• Project duration: May-Jul 2019
• Roles I assumed: Product designer

Project brief

The number of freelancers are booming  — the workforce share of gig work rose from 10.1%  in 2005 to 15.8% in 2015. The number is expected to grow as 1 in 5 full-time gigers say they’ll continue to pick up incremental work in the gig economy as their main source of income following “retirement.” 
When it comes to move to freelance work , people with full time jobs have several problems to solve. Their work increases as they have to manage clients, projects accounts, and taxes. Unlike existing  tools that look over-complicated for small business owners, Bolt is built for small agencies and freelancers. Its simplicity of use and full project management automation are two characteristics that set Bolt apart.


‍
Bolt is launched just as a free Invoicing Tool initially but will be followed by Proposals features to help freelancers close deals.

Vision

The Bolt team had an inspiring product vision – they wanted to make small businesses more efficient at managing invoices. That's why the platform was built to automate the entire invoice management process

Invoices were supposed to have these features :

• Recurring Invoices
• Payments via Paypal + ACH Bank Wire Transfers
• Customise invoices ~ Initially 2 Invoice Types: Simple and Modern
• URL based invoices + Invoices sent on mails
• Export in PDF format

I needed to design Bolt in a way that supports the product vision but does even more than that. I wanted to help users to not only be efficient but also to improve the interactions to make it more fun and modern.

Design Process

I joined Bolt adjusting to their work processes and designing a product together as one team.

User Research

The tool is aimed at creatives and tech based audience. Including both full time and part time freelancers with an age demographic of 21- 40. Users may be individuals or small businesses like design studios or small IT service based companies.

Most important aspect for the users was Ease of use- “ the first priority is how much time users are saving with this tool”

User Research Insights

After analyzing the user needs, we translated them into the following design requirements:

• The product needs to help users perform their tasks in just a few clicks so that they could see the real benefits from automating their work processes.
• Every detail on the screen needs to make sense to users, but it shouldn't restrict them from performing a certain action
• While using the app users should feel professional and confident – this will help them get better at managing their clients

Competitive Analysis

Our next step was to analyze Bolt’s competitors' products to find out their strengths and weaknesses and design a better product.We looked at hellobonsai, Zoho, Payu and Deel. Discussed every insight with the product manager to get a better understanding of the users and align our design decisions with the product vision.

Moodboarding

Created a digital collage of design elements – images, colors, fonts, patterns – that defined the direction of a product before we put the time and effort into creating it. It helped us avoid any misunderstandings and reduced the time spent later on revisions.

Wireframing

Created a wireframe for every step and designed every page using elements from the design system. Once approved with the product owner, I started adding details gradually building up micro-interactions and smaller features.

Dashboard

The dashboard is the first screen a user sees after signing in. It displays summary/activity that help users understand their current progress.

Listing

• All invoices are listed in a tabular format. The main information about every invoice is visible on this page so users don't need to click anywhere else.
• On the screen, users can see the details of all categories of invoices – due, opened, declined, accepted – and define their next steps.

Invoices

Preparing and sending invoices requires only a few clicks. We created customizable invoice templates that allow users to insert the needed project data in seconds.

‍

Users can't wait to start working with it

It took me about 1.5 months to design Bolt. During this time I created the entire platform and made it look more professional, modern, and usable.

https://www.sendbolt.co/