The Statement Builder is a core tool for creating financial statements off of historical data. Despite strong demand from customers, our analytics platform showed us the original version had low adoption and poor success rates due to a confusing UI and limited functionality. During a three-week lull between contracturally obligated work, I led the redesign to improve usability, expand functionality, and future-proof the experience. The new design increased success rates by over 3x and enabled ongoing expansion into new statement types.

The project began with a request to extend our existing statement builder to support generating forecasts. As I explored the feature, it became clear that layering new functionality onto the current experience would introduce significant friction. To better understand the root issues, I reviewed Fullstory replays of customers using the statement builder. The key problems can be summarized as follows:

Over a two-week period, I worked closely with my team and internal subject matter experts to reimagine the Statement Builder around a simple principle: one UI per goal. This shift allowed us to break a single, overloaded interface into modular, purpose-built flows aligned to specific user goals.

Streamlined entry point: Instead of forcing multiple workflows into one screen, users now start by choosing their goal.

Goal-oriented workflows: Each statement type has its own clear flow, reducing confusion and helping users stay on track.

Recognition over memorization: Each flow surfaces relevant options and contextual cues so analysts can immediately recognize what to do next, without having to remember how the interface works.

Phased rollout: Working closely with engineering, we built and shipped the first two redesigned flows in one week, gathered customer feedback, refined them, and then expanded with additional flows.

This approach gave us both immediate usability improvements and a structure that could scale to new statement types in the future.

This redesign transformed the Statement Builder from an underperforming, high-demand feature into a scalable, results-driving tool. By reframing the experience around user goals, adoption and success rates improved dramatically, setting the foundation for continued expansion and long-term value.

Automation opportunities: Early exploration with AI shows promise for efficiency gains, but accuracy remains a top concern.

Usability testing: Success rates improved significantly, but more testing can uncover how to increase it further.

Technical Evolution: Future releases can evolve the validation system to improve usability (in progress 2026).