top.legal

Designing an AI-enabled contracting platform for closing better deals faster

Role: Product Designer ∙ UX/UI Designer ∙ UX Strategist
Client: top.legal - B2B SaaS
Timeline: 2022

Project Overview

top.legal is an AI-enabled contracting platform that helps sales and legal teams close better deals faster by combining sales enablement with legal automation.

When I joined the team, the product was already in progress, but a key friction point remained unsolved:

Sales teams were losing momentum because they couldn’t see what was happening after sending a contract to clients.

My goal was to design an experience that clarifies deal dynamics, increases transparency between parties, and supports smarter, faster decision-making.

Problem

Sales cycles rely heavily on timing, clarity, and alignment. But once a contract was delivered:

  • Sales reps lost visibility into client actions

  • Communication between parties became fragmented

  • Teams lacked a single source of truth for deal progress

  • Sales managers felt frustrated, stuck, and unable to plan next steps


This resulted in loss of deal momentum, slower negotiations, lower conversion and reduced revenue opportunities

Research

I initiated a re-discovery research phase to validate assumptions and identify gaps in our understanding:

  • How do sales people operate daily?

  • What do they need to qualify leads?

  • What information becomes critical once a contract is sent?

  • Where exactly does momentum break?


In addition, I conducted a benchmark session to craft a valuable experience →

Insights

Across research, user interviews and observations, I identified 5 recurring pain points in sales cycles and sales people day-to-day jobs:

◎ Sales cycles rely heavily on timing, clarity, and alignment.

◎ Loss of visibility after sending a contract

◎ Difficulty understanding progress

◎ Momentum breaks easily

◎ Fragmented communication and unclear responsabilities

Solution

Real-time visibility: clear, chronological view of activities from all deal parties to understand momentum, reduce friction, and confidently move the deal forward.

◉ Chronological Timeline

◉ Activity List for detailed information

◉ Integrated deal overview

◉ Multiple sales-cycle scales

◉ Interaction logic

1. Systems Thinking:

Map every actor, touchpoint, and interaction within the sales cycle.

Design Strategy

To bring clarity to a highly complex process, I defined a design strategy based on:

2. Visual cognition & simplified pattern recognition:

Represent activities in a way that is instantly scannable and actionable.

3. Decision-support focus:

Enable users to understand what happened, what it means, and what should happen next.

4. Dual-view model:

Combine high-level momentum + detailed activity for different cognitive needs..

Design Process

User Flow

Low-fid prototype

Branding & UI Kit

The Momentum feature was integrated into the existing top.legal design system, which needed to update its foundations to make them strong and brand-oriented.

The priority was consistency, scalability, and clarity.

High fidelity exploration

Due to business constraints, we moved quickly from concept to high-fidelity — but I still tested with two users and validated critical interactions.

Key iterations were:

  • Simplified navigation with back/forward arrows

  • Added different sales-cycle views

  • Improved consistency of components

  • Eliminated confusing contract previews

  • Added more activity types to give full context

Outcome

A single source of truth for deal activity

Clear understanding of client engagement

Increased transparency across teams

Reduced friction in communication

Higher confidence in planning next steps

Faster and smarter decision-making

Learning

This project reinforced critical lessons in product design:

  • Momentum matters; even small gaps in visibility can stall entire sales cycles.

  • Visualizing complexity requires simplifying mental models, not data.

  • Dual-view systems (macro + micro) increase user clarity and confidence.

  • Constraints can accelerate creativity when aligned with user needs.

Most importantly, it showed the value of human-centered decision-support design inside complex B2B workflows.

At the end of the process, Momentum feature became one of the most valuable additions to the product’s Private Space.