UX Design · B2B SaaS · UAE Market
Paperwurk
UAE business compliance is legally mandated and deeply fragmented. Paperwurk brings clients, service providers, and administrators into one platform — and makes each of them feel like they're using software built just for them.
Role
Lead UX Designer & Architect
Scope
4 workspace types · 14 personas · end-to-end product design
Deliverables
110+ screens · 12 flows · 95+ diagrams
01 — The Problem
Running a business in the UAE means juggling five compliance systems that don't talk to each other.
Trade licenses, VAT filings, visa renewals, Emirates IDs, ESR reports — each one lives in a different government portal with its own deadline and process. Founders deal with this by spreading their compliance across spreadsheets, email threads, WhatsApp chains, and whoever their PRO agent is this month.
Missing a deadline isn't just an inconvenience — it's fines, suspended licenses, cancelled visas. The stakes are real, but the tooling isn't. SMEs are too small for enterprise software and too complex for anything off-the-shelf.
No single calendar
VAT, trade license, visa — three separate systems, three separate renewal cycles. Founders piece it together manually or miss things entirely.
No shared source of truth
Every service provider gets a different version of the same document. Things fall out of sync. Nobody knows which passport copy is current.
Trust is fragile
Founders are uncomfortable sharing sensitive financial or immigration documents with new suppliers. But they have to, to get anything done.
Processes that feel longer than they are
Business setup, visa processing, service engagement — these are manageable steps presented as overwhelming walls of requirements.
02 — Designing for Everyone at Once
14 people. One platform. Each one should feel like it was built for them.
The founding insight was that this couldn't be designed as one product with role-based restrictions bolted on. A compliance supplier doesn't want to use a "client compliance tool with parts turned off." They want their own tool — one that looks and feels like it was made for delivering services, not managing a business.
So we designed four distinct workspaces that share infrastructure but feel independent. The client experience, the supplier experience, the affiliate experience, the admin experience — each one was designed as if it were a standalone product.
The Five Design Principles Behind Every Decision
Show only what matters
A PRO agent should never see VAT filing. A staff member should never see the supplier marketplace. Keeping irrelevant things invisible isn't a permission problem — it's a clarity problem.
Don't make users manage access
When a founder hires a new accountant, access to the right documents should just happen. The system knows the relationship; it shouldn't ask the user to configure it.
Compliance lives on the dashboard
Renewal deadlines and regulatory events belong at the top of the founder's day — not buried three levels deep in a settings menu. If it's urgent, the product should make it feel urgent.
Break big journeys into small steps
Setting up a UAE business involves a lot of decisions. Showing every field at once is overwhelming. Progressive disclosure lets users focus on one thing at a time without losing sight of where they are.
Every workspace feels purpose-built
A supplier shouldn't feel like they're using a client's tool with parts hidden. Their workspace looks and behaves like software made for exactly what they do.
The Four Workspaces
Client Workspace
Founder / Master
Full access — business setup, compliance, team, finance
Accountant
Financial scope — VAT, expenses, invoices
PRO Agent
Immigration scope — visas, work permits, Emirates IDs
Staff / Employee
Personal scope — own documents, visa status
Supplier Workspace
Supplier Admin
Full business access — clients, team, analytics
Delivery Operations Manager
Active client service delivery
Sales Representative
Lead generation, proposals, CRM
Compliance Lead
Quality assurance, service audits
Affiliate Workspace
Individual Affiliate
Direct referral tracking and commissions
Agency Affiliate
Network management, sub-affiliate oversight
Platform Admin Workspace
Super Admin
Full system access
Support Manager
Client and supplier support
Operations Analyst
Reporting and monitoring
Compliance Officer
Regulatory oversight
03 — The Hardest Part
Three suppliers. Three completely different views of the same client. Zero configuration screens.
A UAE business might simultaneously engage a visa processing firm, an accounting firm, and an attestation service. Each one needs access to entirely different documents. The visa firm shouldn't see VAT records. The accountant shouldn't see passports.
The challenge wasn't the access control logic — it was designing a system where neither the client nor the supplier ever faces a screen that says "configure permissions." The right access should just appear, automatically, based on what the engagement is.
How It Works — One Client, Three Active Suppliers
The Client's Document Vault
Everything in one place — the founder sees it all
Passports & Visas
VAT & Financials
Attestation Docs
Visa Services
ProVisa
Sees only:
Employee passports
Visa copies
Medical certificates
Cannot access:
VAT documents
Financial statements
Attestation files
Accounting
TaxPro
Sees only:
Financial statements
VAT documents
Invoices
Cannot access:
Visa & passport files
Medical records
Attestation files
Attestation
AttestCo
Sees only:
2 specific shared documents
Cannot access:
All other documents — engagement-scoped only
Access is tied to the engagement, not configured by the user. When a supplier is engaged, they get exactly what they need. When the engagement closes, access disappears. The client never touches a permissions panel.
04 — The Flows That Matter
Every journey mapped before a single screen was drawn.
12 end-to-end flows were fully validated — every branch, every decision point, every edge case — before entering Figma. Three of them shaped the product more than any other.
01
First-time Setup — Founder
- 1
Choose jurisdiction: mainland or free zone — shapes everything that follows
- 2
Set compliance profile: VAT status, industry, headcount
- 3
Review the compliance calendar, pre-populated from the business profile
- 4
Optionally browse the supplier marketplace to engage a first service provider
The goal was to get a founder to their first meaningful moment — a populated compliance calendar — without overwhelming them. Every screen asks for exactly one thing.
02
Engaging a Supplier
- 1
Founder browses marketplace, filtered by service type and jurisdiction
- 2
Sends a scoped quote request — supplier only sees what's relevant
- 3
Supplier reviews, submits a proposal with timeline
- 4
Founder accepts — access is automatically scoped to the engagement
- 5
Supplier delivers via a dedicated task view; founder tracks progress
- 6
Engagement closes — supplier access is revoked automatically
The founder never touches an access settings screen. Neither does the supplier. The platform manages the whole handshake.
03
Compliance Calendar
- 1
All deadlines pulled from the business profile, documents, and active engagements
- 2
Events colour-coded by type — VAT, trade license, visa, ESR
- 3
Overdue items rise to the top of the dashboard as red alerts
- 4
Each alert links directly into a guided resolution workflow
"Renew Trade License" doesn't take you to a help article — it opens a pre-filled service request with one tap.
05 — Design Decisions
The choices that shaped what this product is.
Every product has a handful of decisions that define its character. These are Paperwurk's.
Navigation is the permission system
Instead of showing everything and graying out what a role can't access, we show only what they can. The navigation itself reflects who you are. A PRO agent logs in and sees a PRO agent's tool — nothing more, nothing less.
Access should be invisible
The hardest UX problem on this project wasn't designing screens — it was designing a model where a client could work with three suppliers simultaneously, each seeing completely different data, without anyone ever configuring it. We solved it by tying access to engagement type, not manual grants.
The compliance calendar is the product
Every other feature in the platform flows into or out of the compliance calendar. Making it the centrepiece of the founder dashboard — not a utility tucked into settings — changed how the whole product felt. It went from 'document storage with reminders' to 'your business, on track.'
Assume the user won't read the instructions
Visa processing, business setup, supplier onboarding — these are long, consequential flows. We designed each one as if the user would start it without any prior knowledge. Every step has one clear action. The system explains itself through context, not tooltips.
06 — What Was Delivered
A complete design system, ready for a team to build from.
The entire UX was resolved before development began — every screen, every flow, every state. A 24-engineer team has a design foundation they can build against without waiting on design decisions mid-sprint.
14
User personas, fully detailed
100+
User scenarios across all roles
12
End-to-end flows, screen by screen
110+
Screen specifications
95+
Flow and architecture diagrams
90+
API endpoints identified and mapped
What the Design Changes for Users
Before
Compliance deadlines tracked in a spreadsheet
After
A live calendar on the dashboard, pre-populated from the business profile
Before
Sending documents to suppliers over WhatsApp
After
Suppliers get exactly what they need, automatically, when an engagement starts
Before
Starting a new service relationship from scratch every time
After
A marketplace with scoped, trustable data sharing built in
Before
Complex onboarding that feels overwhelming
After
A guided setup that shows one decision at a time
Status
Design complete. Development in progress. The hardest problems — the ones that determine what kind of product this is — were solved before a line of code was written.