Cobble

·

Bookkeeping for freelancers

A dashboard freelancers can read in ten seconds

A dashboard freelancers can read in ten seconds

Cobble’s dashboard had 11 charts and a support queue asking where the tax number was. I replaced it with one clear answer and built it.

Cobble’s dashboard had 11 charts and a support queue asking where the tax number was. I replaced it with one clear answer and built it.

Year

2024

Role

Product design and front-end build

Duration

8 weeks

Product

The Cobble dashboard card: one large figure, $3,420 to set aside for tax, with a short breakdown below it
The Cobble dashboard card: one large figure, $3,420 to set aside for tax, with a short breakdown below it
The Cobble dashboard card: one large figure, $3,420 to set aside for tax, with a short breakdown below it

01 · The brief

What they asked for

What they asked for

Our users are illustrators and photographers, not accountants. They open the app to see one thing: how much to set aside for tax.

Constraints

  • Vue front end, staying Vue

  • Figures must match the accountant’s export to the cent

  • Eight weeks, including tests with 12 users

The old Cobble dashboard with eleven small charts, most marked “rarely opened” in a usage overlay
The old Cobble dashboard with eleven small charts, most marked “rarely opened” in a usage overlay
The old Cobble dashboard with eleven small charts, most marked “rarely opened” in a usage overlay
A notebook sketch of the Cobble dashboard: one big figure, ‘Set aside for tax $3,420’, a ‘how we got this’ button, and collapsed breakdown and charts rows, noted ‘one number first’ and ‘charts only when asked’.
A notebook sketch of the Cobble dashboard: one big figure, ‘Set aside for tax $3,420’, a ‘how we got this’ button, and collapsed breakdown and charts rows, noted ‘one number first’ and ‘charts only when asked’.
A notebook sketch of the Cobble dashboard: one big figure, ‘Set aside for tax $3,420’, a ‘how we got this’ button, and collapsed breakdown and charts rows, noted ‘one number first’ and ‘charts only when asked’.

02 · Design

What I decided, and why

01

One number first: what to set aside.

All twelve test users looked for it before anything else.

02

Charts on request, not by default.

Nine of the eleven charts were opened by under 3% of users.

03

Explain every number in one tap.

Trust in the figure mattered more than the figure.

03 · Build

How it was built

How it was built

Stack

Vue 3, TypeScript, Vite, Chart.js, Cypress

What the team kept

Component docs, Cypress tests for every calculation view, and a week of pairing with their two engineers.

A code editor showing a Cypress test that checks the tax figure, beside the dashboard in a browser
A code editor showing a Cypress test that checks the tax figure, beside the dashboard in a browser
A code editor showing a Cypress test that checks the tax figure, beside the dashboard in a browser

04 · Result

What changed

−31%

support tickets per active user, 90 days after launch vs. the 90 before

10 s

median time to find the tax figure in testing, down from 48 s

+12 pts

month-two retention of new users, first quarter

Visit the live site

Our support queue went quiet the week it launched. That has never happened before.

Sam Whitlock

Head of Product, Cobble

Our support queue went quiet the week it launched. That has never happened before.

Sam Whitlock

Head of Product, Cobble

Our support queue went quiet the week it launched. That has never happened before.

Sam Whitlock

Head of Product, Cobble

Next project

A linen store you can almost touch

Harbor & Fen

·

2024

Open project

A tablet showing the Harbor & Fen product page for a washed linen duvet cover, $240, in Oat, for oak floors, with an actual-size weave close-up and a fabric swatch card beside it.
A tablet showing the Harbor & Fen product page for a washed linen duvet cover, $240, in Oat, for oak floors, with an actual-size weave close-up and a fabric swatch card beside it.
A tablet showing the Harbor & Fen product page for a washed linen duvet cover, $240, in Oat, for oak floors, with an actual-size weave close-up and a fabric swatch card beside it.

Contact

Have a project with a date on it?

Tell me what you’re building and when it needs to ship. I’ll reply with whether I can help, and how.

A new email to hello@rhealind.com asking to talk about a project with a June launch, beside a March 2027 calendar whose first week is highlighted as 'Booking from', and a tag reading 'Replies within 1 business day'.

hello@rhealind.com

Email me

Booking from March 2027

Replies within 1 business day

Pacific Time

Contact

Have a project with a date on it?

Tell me what you’re building and when it needs to ship. I’ll reply with whether I can help, and how.

A new email to hello@rhealind.com asking to talk about a project with a June launch, beside a March 2027 calendar whose first week is highlighted as 'Booking from', and a tag reading 'Replies within 1 business day'.

hello@rhealind.com

Email me

Booking from March 2027

Replies within 1 business day

Pacific Time

Contact

Have a project with a date on it?

Tell me what you’re building and when it needs to ship. I’ll reply with whether I can help, and how.

A new email to hello@rhealind.com asking to talk about a project with a June launch, beside a March 2027 calendar whose first week is highlighted as 'Booking from', and a tag reading 'Replies within 1 business day'.

hello@rhealind.com

Email me

Booking from March 2027

Replies within 1 business day

Pacific Time

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