Contracts365

Go with the workflow

contracts365.com

We helped make enterprise contract management processes more intuitive.

  • Alignment Workshops

    Bring stakeholders together through structured, facilitated sessions that establish priorities and strategies for a path forward.

  • In-Depth Interviews

    Climb inside the world of the user with structured interviews that bring their unique voices into the design process.

  • Competitive Analysis

    See where you shine, where you don’t, and how to leverage that intel to fill the most important gaps in your experience.

  • Experience Strategy

    We evaluate internal perceptions, user goals and best practices to find that “special sauce” that drives an actionable roadmap for your future experience.

  • Sketches

    When it comes to bringing ideas to life, the pencil is mightier than the keyboard. And much faster.

  • Prototypes

    If a picture is a thousand words, a high-fidelity prototype is the entire story. Bringing the user experience to life with a fully-interactive artifact is a low-cost, high-value way to iterate without the investment of code.

  • Visual Design

    Through imagery, messaging, color and typography, we deliberate over pixels, consistency, readability, contrast, accessibility and creativity.

  • User Testing

    To get decisive, actionable findings, we let users explore without artificial restrictions. We design our prototypes to accommodate this need, as a final product would.

  • Functional Specifications

    Converting your designs into well-documented specifications with functionality, flows, layout, and styles ensures that no developer has to guess what comes next.

The Challenge

Today, contracts are ubiquitous. Most business relationships can’t start without one and most business transactions hinge on their being in place. Purchasing, sales, confidentiality agreements, MSAs, SLAs, real estate deals, licensing…it’s staggering when you think about it. That’s why that’s all Contracts 365, Inc. thinks about. 

When they came to us, Corridor Company (as they were known back then) was preparing for its next wave of growth. They wanted to evolve their intricate and highly engineered contract management software, making it ever-more usable and intuitive. They challenged us to help them deliver on what they term “The 30-Second Imperative”—their engineering design principle that users should be able to complete basic contracting tasks in 30 seconds or less. 

We said, “Grab your stopwatch.”

Reimagined dashboard to elevate key actions and statuses to where users need them
The core experience, reimagined and rebranded

Our Approach

The ZeroDegrees team began with the basics, redesigning Corridor’s main dashboard and contract record—home base for every contract manager—to make both more visually appealing and easier to use. In following sprints, we helped update the UX on approval flows, visual navigator tools, tables, emails, and more. Taking small, reasonable steps while ensuring the complex workflows driving it all wouldn’t be affected.

As the application improved, Corridor began to realize that their brand and communications materials needed the same kind of attention. Working closely with designers and strategists that included ZeroDegree’s extended partner team, Magnifico Design and Anders Magnus, they worked to modernize and elevate the brand experience. Leveraging Corridor’s beloved flagship product, a new name, a new logo, and a new brand emerged: Contracts 365®. 

Then, ZeroDegrees dove back in. We helped redesign the entire application to align with the new Contracts 365 brand. Then, honing our prior work, we continued to refine the user experience to ensure critical, routine tasks could be completed effortlessly (in 30 seconds, in fact) while helping to re-envision how the entire contract workflow could work.

Taking complicated workflows and simplifying their presentation to show status and actions needed
Taking complicated workflows and simplifying their presentation to show status and actions needed

Over the course of several years and many more sprints, ZeroDegrees has collaborated with Contracts 365 at every level—from helping with alerts and notifications to incorporating OpenAI into the application to speed form processing. And through it all, user centricity and intuitive interactions have become a hallmark of the Contracts 365 application, and a key differentiator for the company as they continue to grow.

AI is used to extract metadata from third-party contracts
AI is used to extract metadata from third-party contracts

The Results

We like to think that the proof is in our enduring relationship, as well as the great work we’ve been a part of. As one of Contract 365’s customers noted, “With other contract management software, it takes forever to get what you need. With Contracts 365, one or two clicks and you’re there.”

Matt and the ZeroDegrees Design Team have become an integral part of our software development process.

With their expertise, care, and challenging approach, we have fundamentally improved both our product and the skillset of our internal teams. We look forward to our continued partnership.

Jasmin Steely Chief Operating Officer