The purpose of UX Design is to help customers and businesses to achieve success.
The Zingtree product originated as an all-purpose “do anything” decision tree. To take it to the next level, we focused it for the CX industry and Contact Centers. This required rethinking some UX paradigms without breaking the things that worked.
SolutionTo understand CX industry users, I regularly conduct customer interviews to generate and evaluate design ideas. I initiated a contextual inquiry study to understand the product's users prior to a version migration. This uncovered critical issues that could be addressed prior to the upgrade.
The U.S. Tax Code is over 74,000 pages in length and even the most knowledgeable accountants get lost, especially when navigating between content from different sources.
SolutionI broke all the information architecture rules of professional research tools (which have their origin in printed books) and reorganized content to meet the needs of users (which became obvious to me after I observed them conduct their work).
Content from professional subscription-based tools is closed off from search engines, and can't be discovered serendipitously by tax practitioners.
SolutionI designed a user experience around a freemium business model, making some content public and visible to search engines. A “paywall” is incorporated to indicate the value of a paid subscription. This project won an employer award for “Greatest Value to Customers”.
Not all taxpayers know they can access their IRS data in a document called the “Tax Return Transcript”. Even if they do, the information can be difficult to understand, since it contains 200 data fields formatted for finance professionals, not individual taxpayers.
SolutionI redesigned the tax information in a way that makes it easier for taxpayers to manage their responsibilities and make effective decisions about their personal finances. My submission won a government award for “Best Financial Capability” (second place).
The Windows-based interface of the TaxPrep software was dated, and needed reinvention for a move to the cloud. It is used by nearly all of Canada’s top accounting firms, as well as the Canadian government.
SolutionI created a design solution that retains the functionality of the legacy desktop software, while adopting interface standards of a web-based application.
Accountants don’t always know how legislative changes and tax events might affect their clients, or how these changes could bring in new business.
SolutionI designed an interface which delivers insights built on cutting-edge technology (AI language parsing), without making the behind-the-scenes machinery visible—it just works. This product won an employer award for “Greatest Value to Customers”.
Stock and investing resources are full of data. Typically, this information is presented as numerical values, leaving readers guessing if a number is average or unusual.
SolutionI used visualization and reference points to give the reader insight and context into the stock they are researching. (The product has been updated since I worked on it, but my data visualization designs are intact.)
