Measuring where things stood
Modernized Accounting is the set of dealership accounting workflows, from GL posting to payments, that CDK moved onto Radial and into Unify. Before anyone could bring it up to standard, someone had to measure where it actually stood. I ran the audit to answer three questions: are these workflows following Radial, how much design debt is there, and how consistent is the experience from one workflow to the next?
Every screen, against the same 12 lenses
I reviewed every workflow screen by screen, in production and pre-production, and scored each one against the same categories so the findings could be compared and acted on.
- Tables
- Dropdowns
- Filters
- Wayfinding
- Side sheets
- Buttons
- Spacing
- Modals
- Responsiveness
- Accessibility
- IA and naming
- General issues
It worked, but it didn't feel like one product
Features had been built fast and without reference to each other. The result functioned, but felt like a collection of loosely related tools.
Three design systems in one product
Different workflows were built on different generations of Radial and older UI kits.
Same problem, solved differently
Tables, filters and side sheets each had several versions with no shared standard.
Components drifted off standard
The design system existed, but customizations meant it wasn't being followed.
No responsive design
Nothing adapted below desktop width, a real gap for a product inside Unify.
A roadmap for the product team
I turned hundreds of notes into a clear set of design requirements, grouped by category. I framed it deliberately: it points to what needs to change and why, and leaves the how to the product team, who know the implementation constraints best.
The audit became the brief
The product team took on the requirements as a formal body of work in the next program increment, and the fixes shipped. The workflows are now more consistent with each other and with Radial.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Hundreds of undocumented inconsistencies | Every issue categorized and documented |
| No baseline or plan to fix it | Clear requirements for each category |
| Three design systems in one product | Fixes shipped, bringing the workflows in line with Radial |