Josh Wright

Background

LegalZoom is a $5B legal technology company with a mission to democratize entrepreneurship. It has formed 3.7M+ businesses since its inception, and went public in June 2021.

LegalZoom’s business formation product accounts for almost half of the company’s revenue, and leadership had been hesitant to take big risks on changing the product offering or experience.

I led design for a new internal startup team tasked with reimagining the formation flow. Our goal was to build a fast, intuitive, and welcoming experience for a downmarket audience. We worked independently from legacy systems to move quickly and explore a new freemium model.

Duration: 4 weeks
Team: 2 designers, 2 engineers, PM, VP stakeholders
Tools: Figma, Mural

My role

Product strategy: As Principal Designer, I partnered closely with the VPs of Marketing, Creative, and UX to determine product strategy.
UX and Product design: I co-led the design of the full experience with another designer. Together, we developed a new design system, crafted end-to-end user flows, and established a distinct visual identity.
Engineering collaboration: I partnered daily with engineers to maintain fidelity in layout, animation, and overall functionality.

The challenge

To differentiate the Ribbon experience from LegalZoom’s typical customer, we decided to target downmarket customers with a free business formation experience. To visualize this, I put together a competitive landscape diagram.

Competitive landscape and target market

Strategy

To meet the project’s tight timeline, I relied on informed assumptions grounded in existing research and design insights. This approach incorporated competitive analyses, proto-personas, customer journey maps, and reference designs from similar projects that had been validated through usability and demand testing.

First, I determine the information architecture

After multiple collaborative discussions with key stakeholders, I refined the focus to a core set of key pages. I then mapped out these pages in a clear and concise format to ensure alignment and easy understanding for the team.