Designing a modern standardized bank cheque printing functionality for law clerks
0-1 feature
legacy workflows
navigating regulatory compliance
LawyerDoneDeal is a company building legal tech products that optimize workflows for lawyers and law clerks in Canada.
As a product designer, I designed and shipped an MVP feature for law firms to print bank-standardized cheques right from their computer.
TEAM:
1 product designer
1 developer
1 business development manager
Photography
Role:
user research
end to end design
Product Management
Development Handoff
PROBLEM
Many real estate law firms have continued to perform accounting bookkeeping processes by hand. However, transactions involving real estate depend largely on cheque handling, requiring writing, sending, and documenting numerous cheques daily with large sums.
Daily manual cheque writing can result in numerous opportunities for human error with large amounts of money on the line.
IMPACT
Beta User Positive Feedback
Two law firms who acted as beta users said the cheque printing functionality significantly reduced the time it takes for their firm to prepare cheques.
MVP Design → New Accounting App
The feature is now used as a selling point to differentiate Realti from competitors, and served as the foundation for the company's new trust accounting platform.
Improved Design System
I used this project to launch new standards in our design system. These standards have now been added into the design system and will guide future software enhancements.
objective
Design a feature for law firms to print bank account information and amounts on two different types of cheques and ensure the final product complies with legal specifications set by the Canadian Payments Association.
Law firms have a choice between carrying pre-printed or blank cheques. File information will need to print perfectly in each section, compliant with measurements set by the Canadian Payments Association regardless of cheque type.
constraints
Firms' bank account information are already saved on the existing software but using legacy code. I will need to integrate this modern cheque printing functionality into an existing legacy workflow.
design exploration
• principles // design north star
Given both the legal and financial landscape of this project, I had to ensure users felt confidence and trust that printing cheques on the software would be legal and bank compliant.
To ensure this message was conveyed to users, I drew on a set of foundational UX psychology practices to guide my design thinking.
Match between system and the real world
Matching physical cheque layouts builds on user familiarity to reduce the learning curve and reinforce confidence in the feature’s legal compliance.
Visibility of system status
Reassures users they’re filling in the virtual cheque correctly by providing clear, continuous feedback that guides them through a new workflow.
• market research
I began looking at similar applications for common workflows and patterns. However, most existing cheque software was outdated and offered little design inspiration. I initially explored radio button selections between cheque types, but wanted something more visual.
Opening a word processor and being prompted to choose between a blank document or a template gave me the pattern I was looking for — a familiar, low-friction way to present two distinct starting points.
Design exploration to allow users to select template type.
• workflow exploration 1
Using the word processing pattern as inspiration, I designed the initial userflow as a gradual process to prevent information overload, where more detailed information is asked gradually throughout the workflow.
• workflow exploration 2
For blank cheques, margin configuration is not as important since the layout can be positioned dynamically to align correctly during printing. However, pre-printed cheques already contain a fixed template on the cheque stock, so users need to ensure their bank details align within the designated printed areas.
Because of this, I added an intermediary configuration screen specifically when pre-printed cheques are chosen, allowing users to adjust and save margins that match their particular cheque stock before printing.
Test prototype to verify workflow with stakeholders.
iterating post feedback
I tested the prototype with 4 law clerks across 2 law firms in British Columbia resulting in two realizations:
Law firms typically carry only one type of cheque
If firms carry pre-printed cheque stocks, it's rare that they'll have different versions with different fixed templates on them.
On the prototype, clerks spent a long time aligning margins and conducting test prints
Clerks spent on average an additional 6 min testing out the margins before they were happy with the final product.
With this in mind, I streamlined the workflow by reconfiguring the margin setup steps as an administrative setting such that it only needs to be configured once and is then applied for all users thereafter.
For firms using different cheque stocks across bank accounts, I also allowed cheque configurations to be managed per bank account. This ensures settings are pre-configured in advance, minimizing redundant setup for end users.
The configuration workflow needed to be integrated into a legacy screen that housed the firm's bank account information. Rather than redesigning the entire experience, I introduced a contextual entry point using a button link within the existing interface that launched a React modal for configuration. This approach allowed me to extend the functionality of the legacy system while minimizing development effort.
Test prototype to verify workflow with stakeholders.
UI design decisions
When filling in the cheque details, match between system and the real world informed the decision to design the cheque input interface to visually mirror a physical cheque. By aligning the interface to match familiar mental models, this reinforces familiarity, reliability, and trust.
Utilizing UX psychology design principles - match between system and the real world
Visibility of system status drove the addition of inline error states and a live margin preview, giving users immediate confidence that their configuration was correct before printing. Allowing them to preview their margin settings and utilizing inline error states promoted user confidence, accuracy, and convey trust.
Utilizing UX psychology design principles - visibility of system status
• design system improvements
The primary standard I introduced was a defined error state pattern. I saw this project as a chance to add these features and improve the software’s overall usability in a focused, low-risk setting. I highlighted borders to surface inline validation errors. This did not previously exist in the software and has since been adopted as the standard implementation guideline for error states across future features.
Utilizing UX psychology design principles - visibility of system status
• reflection
While adoption has been limited due to many firms relying on external accounting tools, the feature was delivered in just three months by only myself, and one other developer — nearly half the time comparable projects in the backlog had previously taken.
In addition to establishing design practices that guided future projects, this project also delivered meaningful improvements to the platform. It strengthened the software's financial capabilities, improved reconciliation accuracy, and now used as a selling point to differentiate Realti from competitors, helping position the software as a more complete end-to-end solution for law firms.