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.
Data from first month after launch
3
7.5%
Increased filing rate
9,406
Successful uploads
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.
Veteran users revealed that a major motivation for returning was carry-forward of previous year's information
Discovery
How do we get their info? We prioritized maximizing the amount of filled information and picked the T1 General
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. Despite high effort, the T1 could provide the most information, a key long-term priority.
The challenge
Our survey found that the majority could find their T1, but there was room for improvement
Out of 158 non-TurboTax customers, found that a lot of users would wrongly assume they could retrieve their T1 from the CRA. Success rate gave us enough confidence to continue forward, but we prioritized providing help.
Design
How will users upload?
With our key considerations in mind, I began exploring different upload page designs. Technical limitations filtered out some early exploration favourites. We explored widely with the available components, but through jams we identified some issues.
Single "action card"
The action card component was clear, feasible, and consistent with U.S. designs. Though it wasn't perfect, it was the best option within the compatible components and layouts.
Low discoverability of our standard help indicators led us to experiment with a new component
Since our survey revealed some 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.
Launch
We launched incrementally to see performance and improve our model. At first, users were struggling :(
11% of users experienced an error, and this was primarily because they were uploading the wrong document. We iterated our designs to pull out the key information and image of the T1. We also improved copy to emphasize "T1" instead of "last year's return".
Improvements reduced errors by 10.5%
Check it out live! If you're a new user, file your taxes with TurboTax to see it :)
Future iterations & business goals
Show immediate benefit by reducing tax screens
While pre-filling information saves typing time, users still want to easily review their data. Our current personal info experience has multiple screens so we created a single-page onboarding to improve the review experience and provide delight. This ideal state reduces clicks by 50%.
2. Maximize the tax outcome and guarantee accuracy
While launch only pre-filled personal information, our ideal state includes tax situation pre-selection and carry-forward amounts. This is also in the works as a future improvement.
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 re-focus myself when I got lost of what our goal was.
The earlier engineering is involved, the better
I learned the importance of hearing the engineering perspective. There were so many considerations and dev timelines I didn't know. In the future I'll start the convos earlier and also learn more about their needs.
Relationships are made from asking questions
I kept thinking "How do I ask partners questions when they barely know who I am?" and my manager told me "This is how they get to know who you are!"
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!
More work
Envisioning the future
Created a detailed, end-to-end vision of how TurboTax can stand out against competitors in 3 years.
Transformed TurboTax into a year-round tool by allowing users to track their expenses by scanning or uploading their receipts