Yuki Accounting
A Modular Design System to Make Accounting Easy, Intuitive, and Enjoyable
Visma | Yuki, Rotterdam Netherlands 2019-2021
About Yuki Software
Yuki is a cloud-based accounting platform designed to streamline bookkeeping for SMEs and accounting firms across the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain. By automating key financial tasks, Yuki delivers real-time financial insights, invoice tracking, and document management. Tailored to simplify accounting processes, it empowers users with enhanced financial oversight and improved operational efficiency.
Business challenge
Yuki faced a significant challenge during an ambitious code migration project. The mission was to enhance the user interface and user experience to modernize the platform and create a scalable, consistent design system. This required designing a solution that addressed usability, consistency, and accessibility while catering to developers across multiple countries.
Why Redesign?
The old platform had several key issues:
Inconsistent Design: Cluttered layouts and mismatched elements across screens.
Confusing Navigation: Data tables and forms were hard to use.
Outdated Look: The design felt old and unappealing.
Poor Accessibility: Limited support for users with different needs.
Difficult Maintenance: Updates were time-consuming and inefficient.
A redesign from ground up was necessary to fix these problems and improve usability.
Inventory of existing components and patterns.
Groundwork for the re-design
To ensure the redesign was effective and user-focused, we started with:
User Research: Understanding user needs, pain points, and behaviors.
Brand Alignment: Ensuring the design matches the brand’s identity and values.
Sketching and Ideation: Exploring ideas and potential solutions through rough drafts.
Goal Setting: Defining clear objectives for the redesign.
Mood Boarding: Establishing the visual direction and tone of the new design.
This groundwork provided a solid foundation for creating a platform that meets user needs and aligns with long-term business goals.
Understanding the user
Embracing the brand
Workshop and moodboard
Sketching
Goals
The Yuki redesign centered on delivering a user experience that was intuitive, reliable, and enjoyable, aligning with both user needs and business values. Below are the key outcomes we aimed to achieve for users:
As a user, when I use Yuki, I feel:
Unburdened: I feel relieved knowing Yuki will notify me about what I need to know, when I need to know it, and what I need to do. This allows me to focus on what truly matters to me.
Effective: I can complete my work quickly, stay in control, and feel productive.
Happy: I keep returning to the application because it’s enjoyable to use.
Calm: The app helps me complete my tasks without being intrusive.
Innovative: I’m using a smart product powered by the latest modern technology.Trust: I feel confident that the numbers provided are accurate.
Clear: I understand how the app works and what’s relevant to me.
Convenient: The platform is intuitive, easy to use, and fits seamlessly into my daily life.
Yuki: I instantly recognize this as a Yuki product.
Yuki Design System
We developed a Design System using these strategies:
Atomic Design Approach: Built a modular system with reusable components and patterns.
Core Styles and Templates: Ensured consistency across desktop and mobile platforms.
Improved Accessibility: Introduced colors, typefaces, icons, and illustrations for clarity and cohesion.
Reflection
Redesigning the Yuki accounting platform was a challenge that combined creativity with functionality. Our goal was to make Yuki scalable, intuitive, and visually appealing while staying true to its mood goals: convenient, trustworthy, effective, and enjoyable.
A key challenge was blending Yuki’s bright, playful identity with the professionalism expected of an accounting tool. Initially, I struggled to fully embrace the brand’s bold, colorful aesthetic, leaning instead towards a more subdued and traditional design approach. My initial sketches, while functional, received pushback for not fully reflecting Yuki’s vibrant identity. This feedback was invaluable, guiding me to reimagine how the brand could shine within a financial context. Through user testing, we discovered that the bold colors, when used thoughtfully, could enhance usability—highlighting key features and graphic elements in a way that felt intuitive and engaging.
Another focus was rethinking financial graphs to ensure they were clear and informative across desktop and mobile. Simplifying data visualizations while retaining accuracy required multiple iterations and user feedback, resulting in graphs that are easy to understand at a glance.
Finally, this project reinforced the value of a solid design system, which ensured consistency and streamlined collaboration across teams. It also taught me the importance of balancing brand identity with functionality and the need for clear communication when managing diverse priorities.
Results
The redesigned Yuki platform now offers a smart, reliable, and enjoyable experience, embodying our Moodgoals by making the platform convenient, effective, and enjoyable. Through the thoughtful integration of a design system, modern UI, and user-centered UX, we’ve made complex tasks easier to navigate, reducing effort while keeping users in control. For example, the clean and intuitive interface simplifies user flows, while personalized features present only relevant data, making the experience more tailored and efficient. By leveraging modern technology, we’ve created a platform that is not only innovative but also trustworthy, providing users with accurate data they can rely on.
The success was the result of close collaboration with fellow designers in the team, especially my manager, whose belief in me and guidance helped turn bold ideas into a platform that truly reflects Yuki’s vibrant spirit and its core values.
