System level messaging - QuickBooks Online

At the intersection of the system-level messaging and visual design strategy, lives the Message Classification Framework. A design framework created and used to inform the execution of customer communications and messaging use cases in product.

Our goal
Provide guidelines and rationale for designers to consume in order to deliver excellence throughout communication touchpoints between QuickBooks and QuickBooks customers.

My role

• Design lead / design manager: Drive execution, define and maintain quality bar
• Co-creator and evangelist: Drive and define the comms strategy and classification framework

Partners

• Product design - Content
• Product design - Visual
• Product management 
• Product development 

Deliverables 

• Design strategy and framework
• QuickBooks design system documentation​

• In product notifications (MVP) experience design (web)​

Design strategy and framework

The framework is composed of three key pieces, each with it's own specific purpose:

Content family
Used to inform channel usage, ensuring content by channel remains uncluttered and relevant to customers. Content families are agnostic of marketing or product-based use cases and solve only for providing QuickBooks customers with the right message at the right time and in the right place

Message type
Messages are categorized in to "types" and assigned specific visual attributes in order to be recognizable across touchpoints and use cases

Criticality / prominence
Criticality is the level of urgency on a scale from: non-urgent to business blocking. Prominence determines how how contextual or interruptive a message can be.

Sample use cases

Invoice saved
Content family: To get work done
Message type: Confirmation
Criticality: Neutral
Prominence: Low

Funds are ready
Content family: To get work done
Message type: Needs attention
Criticality: Needs attention
Prominence: High

Guided tour
Content family: To get work done
Message type: Neutral
Criticality: Neutral
Prominence: High

Message types

Message type: Needs attention

Message type: Educational / help

Message type: Confirmational

Message type: Promotional

Message type: Critical

Message type: Neutral

Notifications MVP

To pressure test this framework, we chose to build the in-product notifications system — an industry standard that to date had not previously existed in QuickBooks. With the message classification framework in place, it was easy to set guardrails for contribution. For good measure, we defined usage, appearance, and behavior guidelines. 

Additionally, exhaustive design systems documentation was needed in order to scale this framework across many product teams. I partnered with the central design team to review, approve, and publish the documentation to our internal design systems wiki. To this day, this messaging framework is used as a starting point and handy reference for any designer seeking to solve a messaging use case. 

Design systems documentation: Notifications

What I learned

Influencing and evangelizing are almost as important as the deliverable itself

• When evangelizing a new system, tailor the content for the audience. For instance, an executive overview will look a lot different than a design systems team shareout.
• ​It's ok to iterate or start fresh based on feedback from trusted stakeholders. The narrative and content will continue to improve with each iteration. Just know when to call it!

Beware of boiling the ocean

• When in doubt, break out customer problems to help drive focus. I have a tendency to over-framework things so…watch out for going beyond the point of diminishing returns. Be exhaustive in my thinking but narrow in execution