IRD (INLAND REVENUE DEPARTMENT)
Re-inventing tax solutions for Caribbean islands
The IRD is the tax administration in Anguilla, an island in the Caribbean. Tax payers used to physically come to their office to file and pay taxes, which is very time-consuming.
GOAL
Implement an online platform to allow tax payers to easily file and pay their taxes online, without having to go to the IRD office.
OUTCOME
A scalable and multi-functional online tax platform that motivates tax payers to file and pay on time.
MY ROLE
UX / UI design, User research, Concept design, UX strategy, Client management
COMPANY
Bearingpoint Caribbean
The project
The overarching project goal was to create a generic design solution for tax offices (mainly in the Caribbean). The IRD was the first tax administration office that started using this new and improved tax system. This encompassed both the internal and external tax services. We developed the full back-office system used by employees, as well as the online tax portal for tax payers. This case focusses on the online portal.
As the lead designer on this project, I was involved in various trajectories to analyse and understand the tax processes of the IRD. I helped translate these detailed business processes into understandable customer journeys that tied together the backoffice processes and tax portal in an understandable way. I also shaped and visualised a new digital style to fit the new tax application.
Requirements analysis
To kick-off the project, I organised several workshops with the Product Owner, Business Analyst and Project Manager, as well as our stakeholders at IRD. Together we specified the overall goal “to increase compliancy amongst tax payers”, which helped anchor the project and make relevant design decisions later on.
I helped specify the provided business requirements into clear and detailed user stories, and created a clear user story mapping. This helped to visualize the goals for the project and prioritise them accordingly. We used this user story mapping to guide the planning and design for the entire project.
Design research
To gain insights into the target users of both or online tax portal and the backoffice system, I organised some co-creation sessions with stakeholders. Based on their input, and available tax scenario’s (such as private tax payers or business owners) I identified various target users with unique user needs. These formed the basis for our customer journeys later on.
I also visited the IRD office in Anguilla to see how people interacted with the (multiple) operating systems they where using at the time, and how they interacted with tax payers coming into the office. I shadowed some of the employees working at the filing desks, and interviewed some of the backoffice users to get a sense of their day to day work and activities.
Concept design
In order to create a usable and flexible customer journey for our solution, I worked closely together with the Solution Architect and Business Analyst. Together, we mapped the full service process, plotting the tax proces onto a logical customer journey. We specified scenario’s, technical requirement and specifications that helped crystallise the proces.
We had multiple co-creation sessions, also involving various stakeholders and backoffice employees. We mapped tax terminology to understandable language for a tax payer, translated tax concepts into clear user flows and focused on user needs regarding tax filing to shape our concept design. We kept the overarching user goals for the online portal in mind at all times (filing and paying taxes easily and quickly), and based our concept around this. In this way we created a tax portal that helped tax payers understand and act on their tax obligations.
UX/UI design
As the lead designer, I was also in charge of translating our customer journeys into a clear and understandable user experience and visual style that represents the IRD and is both clear and accessible.
Once the overarching service flows were discussed, I dove into the details of the interaction design for the portal. I created a clear sitemap, created user flows for the main user goals and detailed content mappings to detail out the specifics. This not only helped to specify the concept, but also allowed me to communicate and discuss with the stakeholders and team members at an early stage about detailed requirements.
Regarding the visual style, I used the current IRD logo as an inspiration for the visual style for the portal. The goal for the portal was to be as clear and neat as possible, while referencing the IRD through visual elements. I brainstormed various options, and designed all pages for each corresponding user story in the chosen style.
Along the way, I presented the flows, ideas and visual style to the client and other stakeholders. This helped to create an early buy-in, and tweak specifications along the way.
Lastly, the final concept was tested with actual users provided by the IRD. During this usertest, I asked people to run through various typical scenario’s (e.g. file a tax form) and discuss any problems or issues. This helped me tweak the designs even further, in order to create the best user experience.
The result
The final portal design focusses on supporting the user in their main goals by clearly providing the most relevant information up-front. The design aims to guide the user by helping them understand what is going on right away (notifications), and guiding them to the correct actions to take (open tasks). The online portal created will allow many of the services provided by IRD to be easily accessible online. It simplifies the processes and actions required by the users, in order to increase tax compliancy.
Moreover, the service concept created served as the basis for other, similar portals and lay down the ground work for the solution design of our company’s tax portals.
Together with a third party, the design for this portal has been implemented and a first version can currently be used by inhabitants of Anguilla. The portal is still under development and being expanded further with additional tax types and services. Furthermore, the portal serves as a starting point on which to build for many more online portals to come. You can read more about this here: https://www.bearingpointcaribbean.com/blog/successful-go-live-of-anguilla-ird-portal/
My activities
- Analyzing requirements & client needs
- Writing user stories & creating a story map
- Creating an overall UX strategy based on user goals
- Understanding and translating business processes
- Creating interactions and content for individual pages
- Creating a visual style for the platform
- Testing the final concept