Provided new users the ability to upload their prior year return to streamline and reduce their onboarding experience
Overview
Easily switch toTurboTax with T1 upload
We reduced the effort to onboard by importing users' personal information from their last year's tax return. This project kicked off the modernization of tax filing by introducing Intuit's data-in technology to TurboTax.
3
7.5%
Increased filing rate
#,###
Users in the first month
Problem
17% of new users dropped off at the start of their return
Filing begins with a series of personal information questions and new users answer 20 questions while returners only have 3. The high effort of onboarding led to high drop-off and lower completion rate for new users compared to returning users.
Interviews with veteran users revealed that a major motivation for returning was that TurboTax keeps and carry-forwards their previous year's information.
Long-term goals
This project was part of a larger vision to modernize the tax filing experience. These 3 overarching goals drove this initiative:
1. Leverage data-in technology
To
2. Reduce filing screens
To reduce manual entry, dictate downstream tax prep experience, and break away from the one-size-fits-all model
3. Maximize the tax outcome
Maximize the tax outcome and guarantee accuracy while reducing irrelevant screens
Discovery
What's the best way to get personal info?
To reduce the effort required for new users to start their return, we needed a way to know their personal information. At first, we debated between using drivers licenses, T4s , and T1 Generals.
Options
Pros
Cons
• Easy to find and upload
• Has zero tax information
T4 (employment income tax slip)
• Somewhat easy to find and upload
• Is missing a lot of tax information
T1 General (last year's complete tax return)
• High effort to find and upload
• Can extract tax situations and carry-forward information
Identifying constraints
I hosted a brainstorming session with 15+ partners from marketing, product, engineering, and more. This exercise helped us align on feasibility and that we would need to survey potential customers on the severity of the constraints before designing.
What's a T1?
Among the team, most people didn't know what or how to find their T1. We predicted users wouldn't either.
Incorrect form
We also predicted that users would upload the wrong form, like their T4 or an incorrectly formatted T1.
Unknown value
Finally, we were concerned the effort to retrieve and upload their T1 wouldn't be worth the outcome.
User research
To better understand our users T1 knowledge, we conducted a survey and found that 35% of users didn't know where to find it
I launched the survey to 158 non-TurboTax customers and as we predicted, a lot of users didn't know where to find their T1. Most of them wrongly assumed they could retrieve it from the CRA.
Low discoverability of our standard help indicators led us to experiment with a new component.
Since our survey revealed users would heavily rely on help content, we wanted to ensure it would be discoverable. We opted to use an expandable card component instead of the usual text button.
Additionally, 64% of users interacted with the help content and 100% of those who interacted with the component correctly described how to retrieve their T1.
Post-launch iteration
After launch, users were still struggling, so we quickly iterated and surfaced the help content to the page's main body.
Relationships are made from asking questions
I kept thinking "How do I ask them questions when they barely know who I am?" and my manager told me "This is how they get to know who you are!"
Defending your designs is defending your users
I learned the importance of pitching my designs to stakeholders in their language to garner support.
Feeling lost? Remind yourself of the goal
Not only was this my first intern project, it was also my first time leading one. As I familiarized myself with the realities of a "real project" I had to remind myself when I got lost
My team <3
Overall, this was an amazing first internship and I couldn't have asked for it to have gone better. I will cherish the memories I made forever!
Self-employed receipt tracker
TurboTax Mobile | Spring 2025
Transformed TurboTax into a year-round tool by allowing self-employed users to track their expenses by scanning or uploading receipts