Nick Bluth - Impactful Product Design

MY ROLE

User Research

User Interviews

Sketching

Wireframing

Screen Flows

Visual Design

Interaction Design

Design System

User Research

User Interviews

Sketching

Wireframing

Screen Flows

Visual Design

Interaction Design

Design System

User Research

User Interviews

Sketching

Wireframing

Screen Flows

Visual Design

Interaction Design

Design System

PLATFORMS

Android

iOS

Android

iOS

Android

iOS

YEAR

2019-2020

Organizing taxes is a mess

Imagine it’s tax season again. You get a pile of tax documents in the mail and stuff them into a drawer until you are ready to file your taxes. After trying to figure out your scanner for 15 minutes you give up, snap some pictures on your phone and email the slightly blurry photos to your accountant. You aren’t sure if you’ve missed anything, but it's your accountant's problem now.

Canopy had started building a web solution to handle this, but we were finding that many tax clients didn’t have access to a computer. Our current mobile experience was… hard to use (that’s putting it lightly.)

Imagine it’s tax season again. You get a pile of tax documents in the mail and stuff them into a drawer until you are ready to file your taxes. After trying to figure out your scanner for 15 minutes you give up, snap some pictures on your phone and email the slightly blurry picture to your accountant. You aren’t sure if you’ve missed anything, but it's your accountant's problem now.

Would users be willing and able to install an app?

We had a theory that a native app would provide a better experience for our users. It meant that we could utilize biometric login and the camera feature for scanning. On top of that, our sales people said that it would help us to stand out. But I was concerned that users might not be willing to download and use another app, especially a tax app from their accountant. Also, building a native app would be really expensive, so we needed a high level of confidence to move forward.

I was able to get access to a handful of our user’s clients. In our interviews, the clients told us that they were surprisingly willing to install an app for their accountant. One user told us that “If my accountant told me to give him the shirt off my back I’d do it.”

I trust my accountant. If he told me to give him the shirt off my back, I’d do it.

Make it easy or don't do it

As we dove into the accountants’ experience they all made it clear that we had a big opportunity that came with an equally big risk.

Opportunity

The biggest headache is getting files from clients

Clients rarely make things easy for the accountants. They procrastinate, don't know how to send files, send sensitive information in an insecure way. Anything

Clients rarely make things easy for the accountants. They procrastinate, don't know how to send files, send sensitive information in an insecure way. Anything we could do to improve this situation would have a big impact for our customers.

Risk

They have to fix our mistakes

A lot of our accountants had a lot of non-technical clients (some estimated up to a third of their clients.) This means that anytime new technology is introduced they have to act as customer support for their clients and teach them how to use it. Not much fun when you're already working 60 hour weeks.

We needed to be certain

As mentioned earlier, this was going to be a big commitment, we would need to hire a new team to build this. I wes excited about it, but needed to be certain. We also performed stakeholder interviews with our executives, all PMs from related products, and a number of devs with security and feasibility insights.

We also conducted a variety of competitive research activities. This helped us to see which tools the clients may be familiar with, understand existing mental models, and gain inspiration from other existing solutions.

Where the rubber meets the road

The design process is one of my favorite parts and because of our extensive research before jumping into this project I had a really good idea of what features needed to be included, along with a few potential solutions that I wanted to explore. I was able to quickly put together some lower fidelity wireflows. These were then used to communicate ideas and functionality to stakeholders, accountants, and some of our accountant’s clients.

After countless rounds of ideas and testing rounds I came up with a solution that both the users and the team were excited about. It incorporated simple and minimal designs with lots of negative space to help it feel simple. I also made sure almost every page had a clear and obvious CTA.

Transforming tax season

Now, when you start getting tax documents in the mail, all you have to do is open up your Canopy app, snap a picture, and select what type of document it is. The app will automatically crop and sharpen your document, name the file, and send it to your accountant.

The convenience of this new experience led to a 74% year-over-year increase in documents being uploaded.

The accountants loved that they were now getting tax documents sooner, they were clearly named, and even their technologically struggling clients were able to figure it out.

Login and Home Page

One of the big frustrations that accountants deal with every tax season is that users always forget their login. Every year they get a number of calls asking for help. Using a native app meant that, after the initial login, users could use a pincode, FaceID, or fingerprint login. No more forgotten passwords.

Research showed that clients were often unclear about what their accountants needed from them. I designed the home page to clearly show any outstanding items.

Imagine it’s tax season again. You get a pile of tax documents in the mail and stuff them into a drawer until you are ready to file your taxes. After trying to figure out your scanner for 15 minutes you give up, snap some pictures on your phone and email the slightly blurry picture to your accountant. You aren’t sure if you’ve missed anything, but it's your accountant's problem now.

To-do list

Our To-Do list made it possible for accountants to clearly communicate what they needed from clients and when they needed it by. The accountants could set up automatic reminders for tasks both before and after the due date.

This feature also allowed clients to communicate directly with their accountants asynchronously with questions about specific items. This meant that clients no longer had to wait for an appointment for questions or clarification on items.

Imagine it’s tax season again. You get a pile of tax documents in the mail and stuff them into a drawer until you are ready to file your taxes. After trying to figure out your scanner for 15 minutes you give up, snap some pictures on your phone and email the slightly blurry picture to your accountant. You aren’t sure if you’ve missed anything, but it's your accountant's problem now.

e-Signatures

The e-signature experience was previously only available on a desktop browser. Adding it to the mobile experience meant that clients could now sign thing on the go significantly reducing turnaround time for accountants.

On top of that the esignature experience was easier on mobile. On average, it took clients a full minute less to complete an esignature in the mobile app.

Imagine it’s tax season again. You get a pile of tax documents in the mail and stuff them into a drawer until you are ready to file your taxes. After trying to figure out your scanner for 15 minutes you give up, snap some pictures on your phone and email the slightly blurry picture to your accountant. You aren’t sure if you’ve missed anything, but it's your accountant's problem now.

Results

Released on December 10th, the Client Portal App quickly became a major selling point for our platform. Within a year we had over 40k app installs. And 34% of the company’s DAU were coming from the mobile app.

Within a year 34% of daily active users were coming from our mobile app.

In 2020 we were awarded the CPA Practice Advisor Tax and Accounting Technology Innovation Award

Taxes shouldn't be taxing

Taxes shouldn't be taxing

Taxes shouldn't be taxing

Taxes shouldn't be taxing

Organizing taxes is a mess

Would users be willing and able to install an app?

Make it easy or don't do it

The biggest headache is getting files from clients

They have to fix our mistakes

We needed to be certain

Where the rubber meets the road

Transforming tax season

Login and Home Page

To-do list

e-Signatures

Results