Xero

Role: Senior Product Designer

Skills: UX, Product design, Accessibility, UI, Design, Research and discovery,

Company: Xero

Project Overview

Xero is a global small business accounting software platform with over 4.4 million subscribers. Globally they help small businesses, and their accounting and bookkeeping advisors, grow and thrive. Customers can automate everyday business tasks, get up-to-date financials, and run their business through better tools, information and connections, from wherever they are.

I was responsible for designing beautiful, enabling and meaningful experiences that solved genuine customer problems, working closely with Product and Engineering on med-large scale projects.

I primarily worked in Reporting at Xero as part of the Reporting & Insights team. I lead the end-to-end design process, resulting in solutions that met our customers’ needs. I undertook research and usability testing, and iterated to continuously improve and refine my designs, while adhering to Xero’s design system (XUI) and the Reporting framework. I worked closely and collaboratively with Product Managers, Engineers and other stakeholders and teams across Xero.

Process followed
  • Collaborate with cross functional teams to ensure proposed solutions balance user needs, business strategy and technical constraints
  • Collaborate with development teams during sprints to provide design QA and problem solve issues as they arise
  • Iterative design approach
Responsibilities
  • Advocate for design and cross-functional collaboration
  • Conduct research and analysis (competitors, trends, strategy, constraints)
  • Define and frame design problems and vision
  • Create design frameworks, wireframes, and models
  • Explore and design innovative, user-centered solutions
  • Prototype and test design concepts
  • Collaborate with designers, accessibility and content specialists
  • Design detailed, context-aware interfaces
  • Communicate designs clearly to stakeholders
  • Deliver thorough design specifications and handover materials to support the go to market teams
Timescales

Daily WIPs and regular presentations to the key stakeholders.

Team make up
  • Senior Product Designer
  • Senior Product Manager
  • Business and Data analysts
  • Engineering pods
  • Accessibility and Content Specialists
  • Go to market team
  • Design team peers
















Key design contributions

  • Reporting charting framework and generative AI research
  • Modernising the Reporting framework, accessible enhancements, greater flexibility and control
  • Generative AI across Reporting and Insights design and research projects
  • Participated in multiple Xero hackathons that solved key Xero feature requests for Reporting and across the product
  • Reporting accessibility and supporting tools, keyboard hotkeys
  • Mentored a Xero Design Grad in 2024 in Reporting and Insights team

Project Summary: V1 Exit – Xero Reporting Migration

The Problem

Xero had two reporting systems: V1 (legacy) and V2 (modernized). Maintaining both was inefficient and costly. In 2022, Xero announced the retirement of V1 reports within a year. However, many customers were unhappy with the change — preferring the familiarity and customization of V1 — and expressed strong negative feedback.

The challenge was twofold:

  • Customer resistance to change due to loss of familiar features.
  • Business need to deprecate V1 while ensuring customer satisfaction and seamless migration.

The Solution

The team set out to:

  • Ensure feature parity between V1 and V2.
  • Release new capabilities to make V2 more compelling.
  • Design a frictionless migration experience.

The design-led approach was central to this success:

  • Worked iteratively and collaboratively across the Reporting framework and teams.
  • Used rapid design loops to test, validate, and refine ideas.
  • Grounded decisions in customer insights and usage patterns.

Design Impact

The process made a measurable difference:

  • 120+ product improvements delivered directly from user needs.
  • 7 million report favourites repointed and 4 million sessions moved to V2.
  • Conducted 50+ customer interviews to shape solutions that met real user expectations.
  • Assessed 1,200+ help articles to align support with the new system.

Outcomes

Despite initial resistance, the transition was smooth:

  • 17.8 million reports run in the first week after V1 shutdown.
  • 91 sentiment feedback items only — within normal support levels.
  • Daily usage by 267k organisations, showing adoption and trust.

Conclusion

The V1 Exit project turned a major customer pain point into a successful transition, thanks in large part to the adaptive, research-led design process. We helped transform customer resistance into acceptance by deeply understanding their needs and delivering a solution that exceeded expectations.

Other projects

I worked on a wide range of digital projects that included B2C and B2B applications across web and native app platforms. I was involved in all levels of product design and development from research to implementation.

Responsible for UX, Product and UI design, including improvements on existing applications and new product development. Assisting in gathering requirements to adapt products from legacy systems into the new framework and design rationale.