Scrollable Timeline View Starting from Today
✅ View user specific tasks and due dates
⚠️ Technical programming constraints jumping to previous dates
❌ Difficult to parse for overdue tasks
Iteration 1
Designing a task management system to improve team collaboration
0-1 feature
systems design
scaling design systems
LawyerDoneDeal is a company building legal tech products that optimize workflows for lawyers and law clerks in Canada.
As a product designer, I designed a 0-1 task management feature for Realti, a SaaS application for real estate lawyers, that allows users to create tasks, assign responsibilities, and track progress.
TEAM:
1 product designer
3 developers
3 consultants
Role:
user research
Conceptualization & Design
Product Management
Development Handoff
feature ownership
Post-Launch Evaluation
PROBLEM
After conducting 5 focus group interviews across Canada, I discovered that law clerks lacked a singular, collaborative approach to track tasks across their legal files in their law firm.
Using different methods to manage tasks resulted in missed tasks and deadlines, ultimately highlighting the need for a singular task management system within Realti, the SaaS application for law clerks and lawyers.
IMPACT
Top 10 feature
The task management feature ranks as the 6th most used function across the platform.
Userfriendliness
62% of respondents described the new task management feature as “intuitive and easy to use”
High Adoption
69% of users have used the task management system at least once since launch.
objective
Design a flexible task management system that allows firms to adapt the designed workflow to their processes, while ensuring that configuration remains simple and manageable.
constraints
I was required to incorporate an underutilized legacy file calendaring feature into the new task management system. Formal mid-project research was also limited. Rather than validating design decisions through dedicated user testing cycles, decisions were primarily validated through internal staff who had previously worked as law clerks. While this kept the feedback loop fast, it meant design decisions relied on a small group rather than a broader sample of active users.
workflow exploration
• principles // design north star
During my focus group interviews, 16 of 20 interviewees discussed their hesitancy in adopting new task management practices across their firm. To ensure high adoption of the task management feature and reduce missed tasks, I designed the system around three key principles:
Incorporate known features and workflows
Connect familiar, but related features and workflows into the new feature in order to minimize the adoption gap.
Improve file progress visibility
Reduce missed tasks and deadlines by exposing the user to the file's progress often.
Enable task automation
Reduce repetitive task assignment to promote an easy setup and high feature adoption rate.
• viewing the constraint as an opportunity
I then analyzed the existing file calendaring feature to identify interaction patterns that could be leveraged within the new task management system. The feature allowed users to select key dates from a predefined list and display them on their calendars.
Through this analysis, I found that many of the underlying behaviors like deciding what appears on a calendar were already closely aligned with the needs of task management. Rather than designing a new calendaring experience from scratch, I explored how this existing workflow could be adapted to surface tasks and due dates. This approach helped maintain familiarity for users while reducing implementation complexity. It became the start of the workflow.
Utilizing the existing legacy functionality to surface tasks and due dates in order to maintain familiarity and reduce development time.
• improve file progress visibility
As I continued my exploration, I focused on increasing the visibility of tasks and file progress across the software. By analyzing how users interacted with their files, I found that important file information was often hidden behind multiple layers of navigation.
Currently, users must navigate into each file individually — across 200+ active files, tasks are easy to miss.
To reduce the likelihood of missed tasks, I explored ways to surface task information at key points in the workflow, including the home dashboard, file home pages, and supporting screens such as the calendar.
There are multiple entry points in the software to view assigned tasks by user. Tasks now surface at three levels— on the login dashboard, inside each file, and in the calendar.
• incorporating known features (internal research)
I continued my design exploration by identifying commonly used features within the software that could inform the new task management experience. My goal was to leverage existing workflows that users already understood, reducing the amount of new behavior they would need to learn.
One of the most heavily used features was Notes, where users communicate with one another, assign responsibility through messages, and track whether a message has been read.
When mapping behaviors involved in task management, I found several parallels: assigning work, communicating status, and tracking completion. These shared interaction patterns made Notes a strong candidate to incorporate into the new feature.
The notes feature on the Tools Panel is heavily used by users to communicate with each other. It has very similar functionalities you would expect in a task management system - assigning tasks to one another via messages and marking as read/complete.
design iterations
I explored designs that accomplished key functionalities of a checklist while allowing users to quickly filter for their own tasks and address overdue tasks easily.
The main challenge was giving both overdue/ past tasks and upcoming tasks clear, but differentiating importance through visual hierarchy. I ultimately prioritized overdue tasks by placing them at the top, as they require immediate action, and enabled task filtering by user to support personal accountability. Secondary actions were intentionally de-emphasized by placing them behind additional interactions and outside the primary view, reducing cognitive load and keeping focus on urgent work.
Another core part of any task management system is a calendar that provides a visual overview of all tasks, events, and due dates.
The main challenge in designing the calendar was balancing information density with decision-making clarity. I initially explored a minimal layout to reduce visual overload, but clients expressed that hiding key details actually slowed decisions and increased uncertainty.
Truncating event text allowed all 30 date slots to fit on one screen, but users couldn't read their information without hovering. After back and forth with clients, I prioritized legibility over density — users now scroll to see all events, but make decisions with full context visible.
final designs
Using our existing design system, I designed an interface allowing administrators to create templates where tasks could be set up once and automated to show across all future files. This would streamline the process of assigning tasks in the future, and reduce missed deadlines. Doing it once will help maintain a low learning curve for our users.
The notes feature on the Tools Panel is heavily used by users to communicate with each other. It has very similar functionalities you would expect in a task management system - assigning tasks to one another via messages and marking as read/complete.
The notes feature on the Tools Panel is heavily used by users to communicate with each other. It has very similar functionalities you would expect in a task management system - assigning tasks to one another via messages and marking as read/complete.
impact
Since launch, the task management feature has become the 6th most used function across the entire platform — tracked through Appcues — signalling strong and sustained adoption well beyond the initial rollout.
Post-launch survey results reinforced this: 62% of respondents described the system as intuitive and easy to use, and 69% had used it at least once. I guided our intern in gathering over 70 survey responses, consolidated the feedback into themes, and converted findings directly into backlog tickets to drive the next round of enhancements.