Design can transform the complex world of small business compliance into a seamless experience. Amy Thibodeau, Chief Design Officer and Head of Core Experiences at Gusto, discusses designing intuitive, compliant experiences for small businesses. Drawing from her career at Facebook, Shopify, and Gusto, Amy shares insights into balancing compliance with user-friendliness.
Key Takeaways:
- Compliance requires small businesses to follow regulatory rules, often assumed to be fully managed by their software.
- Regulatory changes highlight the challenge of staying current with shifting compliance requirements.
- Compliance design can guide users, preserve choice, and enable flexibility and trust for small businesses.
- Collecting accurate data at the right time is critical to avoid costly penalties.
- Simplifying jargon helps SMBs understand compliance without feeling overwhelmed.
- Continuous updates in compliance workflows foster trust and alleviate user anxiety.
- Generative AI has the potential to synthesize vast regulatory datasets, offering SMBs personalized and actionable compliance guidance.
Simplifying compliance through UX innovation
Many SaaS platforms embedding Fintech products underestimate their responsibility in compliance. This podcast explored how compliance impacts small business owners and intersects with product design and strategies for streamlining the experience.
Designing software to help small businesses navigate compliance requirements can be daunting, as regulations are often complex and constantly changing. In a recent SMB Tech Innovators podcast, Amy shared her expertise in designing intuitive, user-focused compliance solutions. Drawing from her experience at Facebook, Shopify, and now Gusto, Amy provided valuable insights into how user experience (UX) design can simplify regulatory obligations.
Understanding Compliance for Small Businesses
Amy defined compliance as the set of regulatory rules small businesses must follow to avoid penalties or legal issues. These rules exist at multiple local, state, and federal levels and often overlap or conflict. For instance, a business in Chicago must follow the city’s rules, Cook County’s regulations, Illinois state laws, and federal requirements.
Small business owners often lack awareness of the full scope of these rules. Many assume that compliance is automatically handled by using software. While this is an ideal scenario, the reality is more nuanced. Amy explained that software should guide users through compliance seamlessly without overwhelming them, but achieving this balance is complex due to the volume and variability of regulations.
The Triad of Compliance Design
Amy’s framework for designing compliance solutions into three core elements:
- What: Identifying the data required for compliance.
- When: Determining the right time to request data from users, ensuring it’s feasible and relevant.
- Why: Explain the importance of compliance steps in building trust with users.
Designing for compliance is, at its core, designing for trust. The software can reduce user anxiety and foster confidence in the process by clearly explaining why certain data is needed, or specific steps are required.
Personalization, Context, and Guidance
At Gusto, Amy and her team use three key principles to make compliance manageable for small business owners:
- Personalization: Showing users only the compliance rules directly relevant to them.
- Contextualization: Providing compliance information at the right moment, such as during a specific workflow like adding an employee or processing payroll.
- Guidance: Offering actionable steps to resolve compliance issues through software or external resources.
Amy shared an example involving anti-harassment training, a legal requirement for businesses of certain sizes in specific states. Gusto notifies business owners when they reach the threshold, provides easy access to training resources, and even automates employee enrollment. This proactive approach reduces friction while empowering users to meet their obligations.
Balancing Flexibility and Prescriptive Guidance
Amy acknowledged the tension between giving users flexibility and providing prescriptive guidance. Small business owners value autonomy and want to make informed decisions, but they also need clear recommendations for complex compliance tasks.
For instance, when businesses must submit an employer identification number (EIN), asking for the EIN prematurely can lead to users entering false information to move forward. To avoid this, Gusto designs workflows that account for real-life scenarios, allowing users to proceed temporarily without the EIN while ensuring they circle back to provide accurate information later.
Designing for Trust Through Transparency
Amy emphasized that transparency is vital for building trust in compliance solutions. Many small business owners are unfamiliar with regulatory requirements or why certain data is needed. Communicating the purpose behind compliance requests helps users feel more confident and engaged.
For example, Gusto explains the importance of an EIN for tax filing and offers flexibility for users who don’t have it immediately available. By demystifying complex processes, Gusto improves user understanding and fosters trust.
The Role of Empathy in UX Design
Designing for compliance involves understanding users, especially since regulatory topics can be intimidating. Amy noted that small business owners often experience significant pressure to avoid errors, which can result in fear and anxiety.
She highlighted the importance of continuous reassurance throughout the user journey. For example, when users submit compliance forms like beneficial ownership filings, Gusto keeps them informed at every step—acknowledging receipt, explaining the next steps, and updating them on progress. This transparency helps users feel supported and reduces the stress of navigating opaque regulatory processes.
The Potential of Generative AI in Compliance
The conversation shifted to the role of generative AI in simplifying compliance. Amy expressed optimism about its potential to synthesize complex data and provide personalized guidance.
She explained that compliance involves navigating thousands of rules across different jurisdictions, many poorly documented or inconsistently updated. Generative AI could analyze and organize these regulations, enabling software to deliver more tailored and accurate experiences for small businesses.
However, Amy cautioned that technology must remain grounded in customer needs. While generative AI offers exciting possibilities, its implementation should prioritize clarity, trust, and usability.
Leadership Lessons for Preserving People at the Center
Reflecting on her career, Amy shared key leadership principles for keeping people at the forefront of technology design:
- Start with the Customer: Always anchor technology solutions in what users need and how they experience the product.
- Empathize Deeply: Understand users’ challenges and fears, particularly with high-stakes topics like compliance.
- Simplify Complex Processes: Act as a user translator, breaking down complex regulations into clear, actionable steps.
The ultimate goal of compliance design is to empower small business owners, reduce their anxiety, and help them focus on growing their businesses.
Listen to Simplifying compliance through UX innovation with Amy Thibodeau, then learn more about Gusto and Gusto Embedded. And connect with Amy on LinkedIn.
