Toucan
Smart contract generation for HR teams
Toucan was designed to solve one of the most frustrating challenges for HR professionals in the public sector: generating personalized employment terms documents. It offers a streamlined solution for creating legally compliant, error-free contracts through a simple, intuitive, and guided interface — built specifically for municipal HR workflows.
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Vision of the project
HR managers in municipalities are responsible for onboarding hundreds of employees each year. These employees are entitled to different salary conditions depending on their roles, employment types, and legal agreements.
The vision behind Toucan was to create a platform that simplifies this highly structured process, turning it into a smooth, step-by-step flow that minimizes mistakes and builds user confidence.
The problem
HR professionals often rely on outdated templates, manual editing, and back-and-forth communication with legal teams to build compliant employment documents. This leads to wasted time, uncertainty, and risk.
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The reality: HR managers are not legal experts, yet they’re expected to generate precise and legally sound contracts under pressure.
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The market: Existing tools are either generic or overly complex, creating more friction than support.
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The need: A specialized, user-friendly, and structured system tailored for HR teams working in highly regulated environments.
The goal was clear: to reduce friction, prevent errors, and make contract creation feel simple and safe.
The research process
User research
Interviews were conducted with HR professionals from local municipalities. They described their existing workflows and recurring challenges: fear of making legal errors, difficulty navigating long forms, and lack of confidence in the output.
One insight became clear: even systems that were supposed to simplify the process often made things worse — either by being too rigid or too vague.
The interviews helped map a clear user journey, exposing emotional pain points like stress, confusion, and fatigue, alongside functional gaps in the process.
Secondary research
To validate the interview insights, secondary research was conducted through professional HR forums, case studies, and regulatory guides.
Recurring pain points included:
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Dense forms with unclear language
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Lack of validation logic for contract dependencies
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Poor document organization and version control
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No clear feedback system or error indication
These findings reinforced the need for a guided, context-aware system that supports HR professionals both functionally and emotionally.
The research laid the foundation for every design decision made in Toucan.
Affinity mapping
An affinity mapping session helped organize user feedback into clear themes and pain points. This process revealed patterns around confusion, time pressure, and lack of confidence—insights that directly shaped the product’s design decisions.
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Empathy map
The empathy map captured what users think, feel, say, and do during the contract creation process. It helped uncover emotional pain points—like stress, fear of mistakes, and feeling overwhelmed—which guided more intuitive and reassuring design choices.
User journey map
A journey map was created to visualize the user’s experience from start to finish. It revealed moments of friction, effort, and satisfaction across each step—helping prioritize improvements that would reduce stress and increase efficiency.
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Brainstorming and HMWs
A structured brainstorming session using the “How Might We” method helped turn user pain points into actionable design questions. This encouraged creative thinking and led to solution-focused ideas tailored to real user needs.
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Crazy 8's
The Crazy 8's method was utilized to rapidly generate a diverse range of ideas, enabling the exploration of multiple creative directions efficiently.
User Flow & Wireframes
A visual user flow was developed directly within the wireframes to reflect the full contract creation process. This approach ensured both structural clarity and smooth transitions between steps, laying the foundation for intuitive UI design.
Low fidelity
Sketching simple and focused wireframes allowed for quick idea testing, concentration on structure and functionality, and easy adjustments as needed.
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High fidelity
Login screen
The login screen offers a clean and secure entry point to the system. Designed with simplicity and trust in mind, it creates a calm, professional first impression for HR managers dealing with sensitive legal documents.
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Main screen
The main screen serves as the starting point for users. It presents two clear options — to start a new contract or access previous drafts — helping users take immediate action without confusion.
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Contract creation – Form flow
The heart of Toucan is a guided, step-by-step form that leads HR managers through the entire contract creation process. Each section is focused, intuitive, and designed to reduce mistakes and overwhelm.Instead of static screens, the prototype video below shows the full user journey in action — from role selection to salary input, all the way to document generation.
Document generation – Final steps
After completing the form, users reach a final review and generation phase. The loading screen provides reassurance that the system is working, followed by a confirmation message that the contract was created successfully.
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Document management – After generation
Once the contract is created, the user is redirected to a dashboard for managing all documents. Here, users can view active documents and access archived (deleted) ones for full control over their workflow.
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Wrap up
Working on Toucan challenged me to design for a highly structured, legally sensitive process — without overwhelming the user.
Throughout the project, I focused on reducing friction, guiding users clearly, and helping them feel confident in every step. If given more time, I’d conduct additional user testing to refine the copy and improve accessibility for less tech-savvy users.
My biggest takeaway? The importance of emotional clarity — not just functional clarity. Even the most logical flow falls short if it doesn’t make the user feel secure and in control. Designing Toucan reminded me that good UX is not only about efficiency, but also about trust.