MAKING TAXES LESS TAXING

Designing a better tax filing experience at SmartWiz.io

Focus Areas
Client Profiles | Chrome Extension | Tax Organizer MVP

Timeline
4 Months

Role
Lead UX/UI Designer

PROJECT OVERVIEW

SUMMARY

SmartWiz.io is a seed-stage startup focused on modernizing the tax filing experience for both professionals and everyday users.
Through user research and early product audits, it became clear that fragmented workflows, tedious manual entry, and confusing onboarding were major obstacles to adoption.

During my time with the organization, I helped gather and synthesize detailed user insights to identify which features would drive the most value early on.

The goal was to support adoption and retention within the current user base while providing clarity around product focus and direction — ensuring SmartWiz.io’s MVP aligned with both user needs and the company's revenue and growth goals.

“How might we simplify complex tax processes with intuitive design to create a seamless, scalable product foundation?”

FROM RESEARCH TO ROADMAP

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

When I joined SmartWiz, the company was transitioning from a service-based model to developing its first in-house product.
Previous platforms had been built by offshore teams, resulting in critical scalability, usability, and security challenges that limited growth.

USABILITY AUDIT FINDINGS

Are We Meeting Users' Most Basic Needs and Expectations?

Before beginning user interviews, I conducted a brief usability audit of SmartWiz.io’s platform against industry standards and competitor benchmarks.

While the audit surfaced expected early-stage issues — like redundant navigation, poor responsiveness, and accessibility gaps — it also revealed missing critical flows, including password reset and trustworthy sign-in/sign-out screens.

I implemented rapid, standards-based fixes to raise baseline usability and enable faster iteration.
Ultimately, the audit reinforced the need for deeper research to prioritize what mattered most to users beyond surface-level corrections.

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS

Is the Core Experience Strong Enough to Support Growth?

To move beyond surface-level usability fixes, I conducted a focused series of surveys, remote interviews, and support feedback analysis.
The goal was not just to identify what was broken, but to deeply understand the root causes of user frustration, abandonment, and resistance.
These insights became critical for defining which features needed to be prioritized — and ensuring that SmartWiz.io’s evolving platform aligned with real user needs from the start.

To move forward, SmartWiz invested in building an internal team to create a flagship platform designed to better meet user needs and drive long-term revenue.

Although the team recognized that users were dissatisfied, they lacked clear insight into the underlying causes.

To help bridge this gap, I conducted early product audits and user research to uncover where the updated platform was falling short — and how we could realign the experience to both user needs and market expectations.

After synthesizing the research, I focused our attention on the three primary challenges that represented the biggest obstacles for users

Password Reset Flow

TOP CHALLENGES UNCOVERED

  • Incomplete Information:
    Missing critical client data forced users to rely on external methods — leading many to abandon the product entirely.

  • Disorganized Content:
    Poor structure and lack of visual hierarchy complicated workflows, causing confusion and making the platform harder to adopt.

  • Lack of Client Visibility:
    Weak client profiles left users blind to onboarding progress, making it difficult to follow up effectively and negatively impacting client retention.

These challenges didn’t just cause frustration — they triggered refund requests, product abandonment, and widespread trust erosion, damaging the company’s reputation and shrinking its revenue stream.

Addressing these issues quickly and strategically became essential to rebuilding user trust and supporting sustainable growth.

FROM RESEARCH TO ROADMAP

MVP FOCUS

With limited time and resources, not every research insight could translate immediately into a new feature.
To create an MVP that would drive early adoption, rebuild user trust, and support real user workflows, I worked closely with the team to prioritize features that addressed the most critical usability gaps and pain points — while also aligning with SmartWiz.io’s revenue and operational goals.
This came with an additional challenge: building a product that not only functioned reliably, but gave the company a competitive edge in a crowded market.

Our MVP strategy focused on three key user needs:

  • Early research revealed that users often felt uncertain about missing client information, eroding trust and slowing their workflows.

    We prioritized improving visibility by designing intuitive Client Profiles, giving users a clear, centralized view of each client's status and outstanding items.

  • Disorganized content and unclear navigation caused users to lose confidence and added unnecessary friction to their tax preparation process.

    To address this, we introduced a structured Digital Tax Organizer that guided users through tasks step-by-step, mirroring the logical flow they expected.

  • Users needed a faster, more dependable way to transfer client information into tax filing software, as the initial product goals aimed to reduce the lengthy, repetitive processes involved in filing.

    The Chrome Extension was designed to meet this need — allowing users to capture and input critical data seamlessly from anywhere, saving time and minimizing errors.

Guided by our research and MVP strategy, I led the design of three core features that brought our vision to life — building trust, improving workflows, and accelerating adoption.

TURNING PAIN POINTS INTO PROGRESS

FEATURES

CLIENT PROFILES

How might we optimize client onboarding by aligning the Client Profile experience with the real-world workflows tax professionals expect?

Client profiles were originally intended to guide users through onboarding and serve as a reference point during tax preparation. However, early designs caused confusion: information was scattered, workflows weren’t intuitive, and users struggled to track client progress effectively — leading to frustration, abandonment, and inefficiencies.

To fix this, I collaborated with developers to identify feasible improvements based on user needs and platform constraints.

BEFORE

The original client profile lacked clear structure and made it difficult for users to track client progress or access critical information efficiently.

With a clear focus on user needs and business goals, I led the design of three core features that formed the foundation of SmartWiz.io’s MVP.
Each feature was crafted to rebuild user trust, streamline workflows, and position the platform for scalable growth.

KEY CHANGES INCLUDED:

  • Adding user-requested fields to capture critical tax filing data

  • Reorganizing profile tabs to match the actual tax preparation workflow

  • Introducing a Client Pipeline, giving users a clear visual of where each client stood in the onboarding journey

These enhancements streamlined the user experience, made critical information easily accessible, and aligned the platform’s organization with the familiar mental models tax professionals already used.

By turning the Client Profile into a dynamic, intuitive tool rather than a static data record, we restored user confidence, improved task completion speed, and built a foundation for higher client retention.

AFTER

The redesigned client profile used Gestalt spacing principles to make content-heavy information more digestible and introduced a client pipeline to improve follow-up, visibility, and client retention.

TAX ORGANIZER

How Might We simplify a traditionally lengthy tax preparation process to help clients complete tasks faster — and strengthen client retention for our users?

Clients found gathering tax documents confusing and fragmented, often relying on external checklists and spreadsheets to track their progress. This led to missed documents, delayed filings, and frustration — during a process that should have been seamless within the platform.

To make the process easier and improve task completion, I designed a Digital Tax Organizer: a step-by-step experience that mirrored real-world tax preparation workflows and proactively surfaced outstanding tasks.

KEY IMPROVEMENTS INCLUDED:

  • Organizing the experience around tax preparation milestones and document categories

  • Adding a real-time progress tracker to highlight completed and missing items at a glance

  • Embedding smart prompts and reminders to guide clients and speed up document collection

  • Introducing a secure Identity Vault, giving clients a trusted space to upload sensitive documents

To accelerate development, we initially leveraged third-party tools while building a proprietary Identity Vault for secure document storage.

By eliminating friction and guiding clients through the process, we increased task completion rates, strengthened user trust, and positioned SmartWiz.io for scalable growth.

TAX ORGANIZER FLOW

We leveraged Typeform to quickly add real-time client progress tracking, which significantly improved retention. The fresh, modern, and intuitive redesign was highly praised by users, transforming a once-frustrating process into a guided experience.

straight from their browser. We aligned the flow with leading tax software to create a familiar, intuitive experience and minimize the learning curve.

KEY FEATURES INCLUDED:

  • One-click uploads from banks, payroll providers, and financial institutions

  • Auto-categorization of documents into the correct Client Profile sections

  • Real-time status updates to immediately track new uploads

  • Encrypted uploads and real-time validation to protect sensitive data

By simplifying document collection and aligning it with familiar workflows, the Chrome Extension removed major friction, boosted filing efficiency, and helped position SmartWiz.io as a leader in the tax tech space.

CHROME EXTENSION FLOW

The Chrome Extension received a 90% user satisfaction score and quickly became SmartWiz.io’s flagship feature — setting a new competitive standard in the tax tech industry.

DATA ENTRY CHROME EXTENSION

How Might We simplify tax filing’s biggest pain points to streamline workflows, boost efficiency, and strengthen SmartWiz.io’s leadership?

One of the biggest pain points in traditional tax filing is gathering documents from scattered sources. Users often bounced between platforms, losing time and risking missed forms — slowing down filings and frustrating clients.

To solve this, we created the SmartWiz.io Chrome Extension, allowing users to quickly and securely upload tax documents

FINAL INSIGHTS

Over the course of this rapid MVP sprint,the designs and features we developed made a major impact on SmartWiz.io. Research showed a 50% increase in usability and a 90% improvement in UI satisfaction, positioning SmartWiz.io as a strong competitor and helping secure significant pre-season revenue.

What Drove Success:

  • User-Driven Design: Consistent feedback shaped features around real needs.

  • Rapid Prototyping: Fast iterations helped validate ideas and maintain momentum.

  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Strong teamwork between design, development, and customer support strengthened outcomes.

Lessons Learned:

This project sharpened my ability to balance user needs with startup realities, move quickly without sacrificing quality, and build trust across teams. It reinforced how critical user-centered design is to early-stage success.

Future Growth Opportunities:

  • Robust Client List: Centralized dashboard for workflow prioritization.

  • In-App Notifications: Real-time updates on filing progress.

  • Multi-Channel Communication: Client messaging across email, text, and in-app to boost retention.

This experience strengthened my passion for building user-centered products that drive business growth — and deepened my excitement to work with more early-stage projects.

“The momentum we built at SmartWiz.io proved how powerful thoughtful design can be — even at the earliest stages.”