Shaping the future of reliable tax advisory.
The project
Taxaly set out to make tax planning useful throughout the year, while people could still act on it. The work connected research, design and development to shape a guided, reliable tax planning experience for American taxpayers, with a clearer sense of what to do next.
“I, as an expert user,
can’t figure out what I
should do next.”
01 / The challenge
Tax planning only happens after the
year is already over, once nothing can
be changed.
Tax planning needs to connect with the financial decisions people make throughout the year — while they can still do something about them.
We were trying to change when taxes happen in someone’s head.
02 / Research
Studying how Americans really feel
about money and taxes
Looking beyond forms and calculations, into how people organise their money, make decisions and decide whom to trust.
Once user interviews were done, AI helped with the synthesis — connecting observations across the research and helping us interrogate emerging patterns. The people behind those observations remained the starting point.
03 / Insights
People make tax decisions all year. They just file them under “financial planning”.
04 / Direction
Deciding who to design for and who we shouldn’t
design for
The research focused the product on a starting audience, and the decisions a guided tax advisor could help them make.
05 / Prototyping
Sprinting with the vibe of our product
We made a working prototype using AI to put the experience in motion — exploring how a guided tax advisor could feel before committing to the full product.
06 / The product
Developing the fully guided tax
advisor
A working prototype helped us connect individual screens into a guided experience.
The guided experience brings the household profile, documents, tax plan and payments into one connected journey.
Each step gives people context for the next: what is needed, where a number came from and how it fits into the bigger picture.
Financial clarity with reassurance
We also built the
client a front door
A single place our client could walk through the whole of it.
The design system, the product screens, and the user flows that connect them.