april Filer App v1.0
I joined april as the only Product Designer, which meant that I was leading and designing every project for the company's consumer facing apps.
My role
I joined april as the first and only product designer of the company. I worked with the Director of Product and Product Managers to create an MVP.
With deadlines completely revolving around the tax season, my mission was to design the Filer, an embedded app which would allow users to file their Federal and State taxes.
Please note: for confidentiality purposes, the level of detail throughout the UX design process is limited.
Research
Research components
Secondary research
Competitor analysis
User surveys
User interviews
Tax 101 (Secondary research)
Prior to working at april, my knowledge and understanding of tax filiing was...well...limited. 🙃 I worked closely with tax analysts and the head of product to learn more about the product goals.
Getting to know our users (Primary research)
In order to really get a firsthand understanding of who we were building a product for, I conducted 1:1 interviews and surveys.
Survey and interview results
There are people that wish to understand why they are doing what they are doing but...
There are also people who wish to get filing done with, and simply handover whatever it is they need in order to file
Many users expressed concern and frustration around tax jargon and terminology
“I get nervous about entering my information correctly from tax forms into tax prep software”
“I'm not always sure what my filing status is”
Survey & interview Findings
Freelancers seek to have a simple way to organize and refer to their ongoing projects and deadlines
Preference of returning clients
Freelancers face the challenge of lack of guarantee of work
Uncover gaps among the existing platforms
Discover how freelancers find gigs
Discover how employers find freelancers
Understand pain points and frustrations of both users have in attaining their goals
Filters and categories are sometimes inaccurate or present a cognitive overload
Freelancers reported that the offers on platforms often undervalue their skill and don't justify the work, for this reason people often find work through their own networks.
Employers/clients face the challenge of finding professionals who can respect the values and goals of their company, despite not being permanent employees.
Both freelancers and employers face the challenges of communication
Define
User persona
Taking what I learned from my research, combined with my understanding of april's target demographic for the upcoming tax year, I created a user persona that represented repeated things I heard from users in my interviews and survey responses. Referring back to this persona helped me keep me aligned with the user goals throughout the design process.
Ideate
HOW might we...address our users’ concerns?
User research found that most users had concerns and confusion around required documents in their tax filing journey. Research also showed that there were some users who wanted to understand the process deeper than others. These findings were kept in mind throughout the design process.
User interviews proved several repeated patterns of preferences
User flows for previewing a return and depositing return
Design
Wireframes aND UI
Because the Filing app primarily functions as an embedded app, and not simply a standalone app, it, it was essential to design with that in mind.
Design systems
When I joined the company, there was no designer and just an external agency that had created a a design library that was not relevant to the Filer app. One of the first tasks I took on myself was to create and manage a consistent design system.
Hey there! A quick note ✌🏼
While the design process may appear linear, it actually involved extensive collaboration with stakeholders, engineers, and app partners, as well as multiple iterations.
Since AprilOS, a no-code platform, powered the app, I had to ensure my designs integrated seamlessly. I worked closely with the development team and CTO to understand the platform's capabilities and limitations, ensuring features were functional within the tech stack while remaining user-friendly. This included identifying customizability within the system and evaluating the effort levels required to meet deadlines.
Finally, both moderated and unmoderated testing were conducted to measure usability and inform design decisions.
Thanks for stopping by!
If you'd like to say hello, chat about design, feel free to reach out to me here.
Copyright © 2024 Adina S. Katz
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