Role
Lead Product DesignerAlso mentored designers and front-end devs
Helping farmworkers open an account 60% faster.
Sendola helps migrant farmworkers bank and send money home. Signing them up took over 12 hours for every worker. We flew out to the farms, watched it happen, and rebuilt onboarding. Time to onboard dropped 60%, and support calls about account setup dropped 80%.
The short version30-second read
Business need
Farms sign their workers up for Sendola. A worker stuck in onboarding can't use it, and costs the farm and our support team hours.
Customer problem
It took over 12 hours to onboard every worker. The forms were long, the ID check was confusing, and nobody knew which documents to bring.
Behavior change
Workers needed to show up with the right documents and finish signing up without support walking them through it.
Hypothesis
If we did most of the work before workers opened the app, onboarding would be faster and need much less help.
Solution
Details loaded in from the farm, a clear list of documents to bring, a path for workers without an SSN, and short steps in Spanish.
Outcome
Time to onboard dropped 60%. Support calls about account setup dropped 80%.
12+ hrs
to onboard every worker, before
60%
less time to onboard
80%
fewer support calls about account setup
2
languages, Spanish and English, built in from the start
Business need
Why it mattered.
Many of Sendola's users come from Central and South America to work on the biggest farms in the U.S. Sendola works with those farms to sign their workers up.
To open an account, a worker has to prove they can legally live and work in the U.S. That's where people got stuck. Customers told us onboarding was painful and the app was hard to use.
A worker who couldn't finish couldn't get to their money, keep it safe, or send it home. Each one also took hours from the farm's HR admin and from our support team.
Customer problem
What we saw on the farm.
We flew out to our customers in Arizona and helped workers onboard in person. We watched farm admins struggle to get their crews signed up, talked with farmers during and after, and sat down with the admin and tech support teams once it was over.
- It took over 12 hours to onboard every worker.
- People didn't know which documents to bring.
- The third-party ID check felt jarring and confusing.
- The forms were too long for most people.
- Many workers can't read well and aren't used to apps.
- The app was buggy, and what got built didn't match the designs.
Behavior change
What had to change.
Workers needed to arrive with the right documents and finish signing up on their own. Farm admins and our support team needed to stop doing it for them.
Hypothesis
The bet.
The biggest fix turned out to be outside the app.
The farm already knew each worker's name and where they lived. We could load that in ahead of time and tell workers which documents to bring before onboarding day. Then all they'd have to do in the app is log in, upload their visa and passport, and agree to the terms.
So the bet was simple. If we did most of the work before workers opened the app, onboarding would go faster and they'd need much less help.
We tested a prototype to answer three questions. Do people understand the process? Do they know which documents to bring? Can they get through it with fewer questions?
Solution
What I designed.
01
Do the work before onboarding day.
Workers hear ahead of time that they need their visa and passport. Their name and address come in from the farm, including company housing. In the app, they log in, upload two documents, and agree to the terms.
02
Give workers without an SSN their own path.
The first question is whether you have a Social Security number. If you do, you enter it and verify with a driver's license or passport. If you don't, you verify with your passport and visa now, and add your SSN within 56 days. A banner reminds you until it's done.
03
Short steps, in Spanish.
One long form became a few short screens with a progress bar, in Spanish and English. Each label says exactly what to enter, like "your name as it appears on your ID."
Do you have a Social Security number?
YesEnter SSN→Driver's license or passport
NoPassport and photo→Visa→Add SSN within 56 days
Before
One long form, top to bottom.
After
Short steps with a progress bar. Company housing comes pre-selected, with the address already filled in.
I worked closely with Lucina Serna Muñoz, our product manager, and Gustavo Jesús Herrera Flores, our engineering manager.
Leadership
Fixing how we shipped.
Good designs weren't making it into the app. There was no agile process, no real handoff to developers, and design and engineering rarely talked. So I changed how we worked:
- Joined the developers' standups.
- Set developers up with Dev Mode in Figma and prepared files for handoff.
- Built a starter design system for spacing, grids, and consistency, and taught it to developers and junior designers.
- Started a Slack channel for flagging bugs in staging and production.
- Brought product managers into QA.
- Added technical design meetings so engineers could weigh in early.
Outcome
What happened.
Time to onboard dropped 60%. Support calls about setting up an account dropped 80%. Workers and our support staff both told us it was easier.
Measurement
How we measured it.
Two numbers we tracked, and two I'd add next.
What to trackResultWhy it matters
Time to onboard
60% less
Hours per worker is the cost farms feel. It decides how easily they can bring the next crew on.
Support calls about account setup
80% fewer
Each call is a worker who got stuck, and a cost Sendola pays for every new customer.
Workers who finish onboarding
Next to add
Faster only matters if more people make it all the way through.
First money sent home
Next to add
It's the reason workers sign up. An account that never sends money doesn't help anyone.
Time and support calls showed onboarding got easier. Completion and first transfer would connect that to the reason the product exists.
Looking back
What I'd do next.
Design for people who don't read well
Fewer words, more pictures and icons, and short videos inside the app. I had started testing these.
Keep it simple without the farm
Sendola was moving into the open market. The next challenge is keeping onboarding this easy when there's no farm to load anyone's details ahead of time.
More work
Another product that had to prove itself fast, and reporting for 700+ accounting firms at BILL.