Problem Statement
Users struggle to understand what they have to do and how to do it, because tax is complicated and they have to work it out themselves.
Sometimes they become liable for things without realising it, impacting them financially and emotionally.
They also struggle to understand who is responsible for doing something.
So they turn to friends, family, accountants and call HMRC for help understanding what they have to do.
How this would be beneficial? in the large context
We have defined ‘tasks’ as a feature to remind users of deadlines and underlying tax obligations, to maximise the adherence with policy: a task represents an action that we want the user to interact with.
Thus, the necessity of the interaction may be an obligation (an action they must complete by a certain date to be compliant), or a prompt / nudge HMRC wants to give, or an action that must be completed to overcome potential blockers.
The variety of possible tasks and prompts connected to the different tax regimes (PAYE / Self Assessment), claims and other elements in the broader tax ecosystem covered by a personal account (e.g. Child Benefit, NI and State Pension, Annual Tax Summary, …) require a structured pattern, to enhance the overall user experience, efficiency, and consistency in design. The pattern we have designed provides a consistent and pre-tested solution to common design problems where Service Owners are aiming at “reminding users about their obligations / about things they should check”, making interfaces easier to learn and use. This will lead to faster development cycles and a more trustworthy user experience.
The pattern aims at providing:
Familiarity and predictability (in both the ‘task’ and the ‘view page’ pages)
Reduced learning curve for users
Faster design and development, and easier maintenance
Consistency across taxes and benefits ecosystem (also by using the ‘Tax regime’ + ‘Tax year’ framework, that helps users refer to the right domain) / inside the ‘Account’ experience
Research
This pattern has been tested with 37 participants across 6 rounds of user research. This included participants with neurodiversity, visual impairments and English as their second language.
The research showed that users understood:
It is a list of things they need to do in relation to their tax
They can click on the task to find out more about the task and to complete it
When tasks were due
What tax year a task related to, for example, 2023 to 2024
What tax or benefit a task related to, for example, self assessment, PAYE
Tasks would disappear from the task log once they have completed it
More research is needed with users of assistive technology.
Suggested Guidance
A list of things a user needs to do. The dates are displayed in reverse chronological order, with the latest at the top. A task with a due date will always 'stick' to the top as the date is in the future - creating a natural hierarchy of task priority.
We can create different type of tasks:
Tasks: things users have to do
(eg. 'Complete your tax return')
Prompts: things user may want to do
(eg. 'Check if you need to complete a tax return')
Recovery tasks: things users have to to unblock an issue
(eg. 'Update your address')
Tasks are always prefixed with the service name and - if applicable - the tax year. This means that they make sense when combined with tasks from different services or tax years.
Selecting a task card leads to a page with more information about the task, including a prominent link to the actual service, and any relevant support/guidance links.
Problem Statement
Users struggle to understand what they have to do and how to do it, because tax is complicated and they have to work it out themselves.
Sometimes they become liable for things without realising it, impacting them financially and emotionally.
They also struggle to understand who is responsible for doing something.
So they turn to friends, family, accountants and call HMRC for help understanding what they have to do.
How this would be beneficial? in the large context
We have defined ‘tasks’ as a feature to remind users of deadlines and underlying tax obligations, to maximise the adherence with policy: a task represents an action that we want the user to interact with.
Thus, the necessity of the interaction may be an obligation (an action they must complete by a certain date to be compliant), or a prompt / nudge HMRC wants to give, or an action that must be completed to overcome potential blockers.
The variety of possible tasks and prompts connected to the different tax regimes (PAYE / Self Assessment), claims and other elements in the broader tax ecosystem covered by a personal account (e.g. Child Benefit, NI and State Pension, Annual Tax Summary, …) require a structured pattern, to enhance the overall user experience, efficiency, and consistency in design. The pattern we have designed provides a consistent and pre-tested solution to common design problems where Service Owners are aiming at “reminding users about their obligations / about things they should check”, making interfaces easier to learn and use. This will lead to faster development cycles and a more trustworthy user experience.
The pattern aims at providing:
Familiarity and predictability (in both the ‘task’ and the ‘view page’ pages)
Reduced learning curve for users
Faster design and development, and easier maintenance
Consistency across taxes and benefits ecosystem (also by using the ‘Tax regime’ + ‘Tax year’ framework, that helps users refer to the right domain) / inside the ‘Account’ experience
Research
This pattern has been tested with 37 participants across 6 rounds of user research. This included participants with neurodiversity, visual impairments and English as their second language.
The research showed that users understood:
It is a list of things they need to do in relation to their tax
They can click on the task to find out more about the task and to complete it
When tasks were due
What tax year a task related to, for example, 2023 to 2024
What tax or benefit a task related to, for example, self assessment, PAYE
Tasks would disappear from the task log once they have completed it
More research is needed with users of assistive technology.
Suggested Guidance
A list of things a user needs to do. The dates are displayed in reverse chronological order, with the latest at the top. A task with a due date will always 'stick' to the top as the date is in the future - creating a natural hierarchy of task priority.
We can create different type of tasks:
Tasks: things users have to do
(eg. 'Complete your tax return')
Prompts: things user may want to do
(eg. 'Check if you need to complete a tax return')
Recovery tasks: things users have to to unblock an issue
(eg. 'Update your address')
Tasks are always prefixed with the service name and - if applicable - the tax year. This means that they make sense when combined with tasks from different services or tax years.
Selecting a task card leads to a page with more information about the task, including a prominent link to the actual service, and any relevant support/guidance links.