B2B - Enterprise - Fintech - 2023
Redesigning the client side of EY's tax data collection tool (Coming soon)
Summary
A redesign of the client-facing side of EY's tax data collection tool. The platform worked well for tax professionals, but the respondent experience had accumulated significant usability debt. Grounded in continuous discovery and usability testing, the redesign made it easier for clients to navigate the questionnaire, track outstanding items, and hold conversations with their advisor — without reverting to email.
The problem
The collection tool replaced a slow, email-based process — and for tax professionals, it was a step forward. But the client-facing experience told a different story. Usability issues on the respondent side ran deep enough that some clients abandoned the platform and went back to email, completely defeating the point. Advisors had developed workarounds too: walking clients through the tool by phone, or filling in questionnaires themselves. The product was being worked around, not used — and for a tool that accounted for the majority of the platform's traffic and revenue, that wasn't sustainable.
The result
Average completion time dropped by half, meaningfully reducing the time tax professionals spend chasing client data — one of the most time-consuming parts of a tax professional's workflow.
My contribution
Making a case and articulating problems to solve
Over time the team collected plenty of evidence that clients were struggling, but not enough clarity on where to focus. The most telling sign was how advisors were coping: walking clients through the platform, or filling in questionnaires themselves after receiving data by email. The product was being worked around, not used. By combining user interviews with a heuristic evaluation of the client journey, I was able to give the team what had been missing — not just a sense that the experience was broken, but a precise picture of where and why.
Designing for a complex, multi-user environment
During the ideation of the client experience redesign, I took the opportunity to fundamentally shift the experience from something closer to a static form, to one built around ongoing conversation and back-and-forth collaboration. Taking inspiration from social platforms and forums, I redesigned the experience around threaded conversations.
Leading the usability testing to de-risk a significant investment
Because the redesign was substantial, the team needed confidence we were building the right thing before committing. I planned and led two rounds of usability testing, covering the full scope of the new experience, with tax professionals acting as client proxies. I directed the junior designer I was mentoring to support with recruiting and logistics, and coached her through moderation and analysis. Each round directly informed the next iteration and by the end, the team had everything they needed to proceed with conviction.
Bringing the stakeholders into the room
Rather than presenting findings back to stakeholders, I brought them into the room. The two people responsible for funding the product area joined one of the later testing sessions — watching real users navigate the redesigned experience intuitively, with none of the friction that had existed before, made the case better than any slide deck could. I did the same with the engineers from the scrum team. For many of them it was a rare opportunity to see users interact with the product first-hand, and to understand the why behind what they were building, not just the what.
Shipping a redesign of the platform's highest-traffic product
The client collection tool was — and still is — the majority of the platform's traffic and revenue. Redesigning it wasn't a low-stakes project. I saw it through from diagnosis to a fully shipped, live product, working closely with product and engineering throughout delivery. The redesign addressed the core usability debt that had been accumulating for years, and the qualitative signal that came back after launch reflected that.
