LISE PILOT | UX
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AI Payroll Experience

Designed a unified payroll gateway that transformed fragmented payroll workflows into a single, real-time experience. By consolidating Workforce Management, Payroll, and analytics into one intelligent interface, the solution reduced manual reconciliation, improved payroll readiness visibility, and laid the foundation for AI-assisted payroll operations.

My Role

Experience StrategyUX ResearchEnterprise UXAI Product InnovationCross-functional LeadershipInteraction Design

Challenge

Enterprise payroll administrators manage one of the most critical workflows in the business, yet they must navigate disconnected applications, inconsistent data models, and manual validation processes to ensure employees are paid accurately and on time. During payroll close, the lack of a unified view creates unnecessary cognitive load, increases the risk of errors, and slows decision making.

Solution

Designed a centralized Payroll Gateway that unified Workforce Management, Payroll, and operational analytics into a single experience. Real-time status, intelligent workflows, and AI-powered recommendations replaced fragmented processes, giving payroll administrators a trusted view of payroll readiness and enabling faster, more confident payroll execution.

Design Process

  1. 1

    Discovery

    Synthesized existing customer research, Customer Advisory Board feedback, and implementation insights to understand the biggest friction points across enterprise payroll workflows.

  2. 2

    Customer Research

    Validated findings with payroll administrators, services teams, and early-adopter customers to uncover workflow patterns, pain points, and opportunities for system unification.

  3. 3

    Experience Strategy

    Facilitated collaborative journey-mapping workshops with Product, Engineering, and Services to define a future-state payroll experience centered around trust, visibility, and operational efficiency.

  4. 4

    Rapid Prototyping

    Developed an interactive prototype that allowed stakeholders and customers to explore new interaction models, validate concepts quickly, and iterate without engineering constraints.

  5. 5

    Validation & Iteration

    Refined the experience through Customer Advisory Board sessions, customer site visits, and rapid feedback cycles, ensuring workflows aligned with real-world payroll operations before implementation.

Design highlights

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AI-Assisted Research Synthesis

Combined AI-powered research synthesis with customer interviews, advisory boards, and implementation insights to rapidly identify recurring pain points, validate opportunities, and ensure design decisions were grounded in real customer needs.

Journey Mapping & Experience Strategy

Mapped the end-to-end payroll lifecycle across multiple products, exposing workflow gaps, manual reconciliation points, and collaboration challenges. These insights established a shared vision that guided product strategy and future-state experience design.

Unified Payroll Operations

Designed a centralized payroll gateway that consolidated readiness, workflow status, and operational insights into a single workspace, enabling administrators to assess payroll health, prioritize work, and resolve issues with greater confidence.

AI-Driven Workflow Guidance

Integrated AI-powered recommendations directly into the payroll workflow, enabling administrators to prioritize high-risk issues, resolve exceptions efficiently, and make informed decisions without leaving their primary workspace.

Human-Centered AI Decision Support

Designed AI-powered recommendations that surfaced payroll risks, prioritized exceptions, and provided transparent reasoning to help administrators resolve issues faster while maintaining human oversight and trust.

Accelerating Product Innovation

Used AI-assisted prototyping to rapidly explore and validate future product concepts, enabling Product, Engineering, and Design to co-create interactive experiences, test ideas with customers, and align on a shared product vision before development.

Key Results

Reduced Cognitive Load

Consolidated multiple disconnected workflows into a single experience, reducing mental effort during the highest-pressure phase of payroll processing.

Increased Payroll Confidence

Provided a trusted, real-time view of payroll readiness, enabling administrators to identify issues earlier and make faster decisions.

Improved Operational Efficiency

Reduced manual reconciliation and repetitive validation work by bringing data, workflow status, and actions into one intelligent interface.

Established the Foundation for AI

Created an experience architecture capable of supporting AI-powered recommendations, predictive insights, and intelligent workflow automation across payroll operations.