Reducing time to send in DocuSign's eSignature for Salesforce

Our goal was to build an ecosystem that enables users to fully leverage DocuSign technology in Salesforce. Here's a look at how I iterate and expand on one feature.

No NDAs were harmed during this story. No metrics, no drama, no future-facing ideas—just quotes and shipped product.

I came into DocuSign to revamp a 10-year-old experience that was built without design oversight. While there were quite a few usability issues to address, our team decided to rebuild the experience on a new platform, allowing us to create a new product and rethink every interaction.

Setting Principles

When you’re stripping something down to the studs, you need clear principles in order to rebuild it correctly. Our belief was that a true integration disappears into the background. Users should be able to send an envelope successfully in Salesforce without knowledge of which technologies are running in the background.

Version One

A senders’ goal is not to simply send documents for electronic signature. Their goal is to reach an agreement. When senders are able to reach an agreement with others quickly and without error, their agreement quotient increases. For version one, my focus was to make it easier for senders to reach this goal.

One step at a time

For version one, senders were able to build or review envelopes in three steps. While senders agreed that this was easy, we knew this was not fast.

Version Two

For version two, I built a quick sending feature in order to speed up the sending process.

Reduced steps

Version two enabled admin users to condense the sender experience from three steps to one step. This made the sending experience easier, faster, and more automated.

Version Three

Through field research, we learned that both admins and senders wanted a sending experience without document preview or recipients.

No steps left

This is the fastest version of the sending experience in the entire DocuSign ecosystem, achieved only through a true integration of DocuSign and Salesforce technologies.

Whats Next?

We haven’t achieved full automation yet. Senders still need to click on the “send button” to kick off the flow. Our next approach is to enable admins to set triggers that send envelopes based on activity in Salesforce. For instance, if a sender or seller changes the stage on a Salesforce opportunity, the system could automatically send an envelope for them.

No NDAs were harmed during this story. No metrics, no drama, no future-facing ideas—just quotes and shipped product.