Orient before asking
Make the next decision, the reason for it, and the person’s place in the journey explicit.
02 / GovTech / Service design
Income Tax
Helping first-time taxpayers & senior citizens
Making a high-stakes filing journey easier to understand, one decision at a time.
Context
Tax filing is unfamiliar, consequential, and full of opaque language.
First-time taxpayers and senior citizens need to understand where they are, what information matters next, and how to recover when something is unclear. The design problem is confidence, not merely form completion.
- Audience First-time taxpayers and older adults navigating a consequential service
- Contribution UI, UX flows, prototypes, and user-testing materials
- Constraint Protect taxpayer privacy and avoid presenting portfolio content as official guidance
Design choices
Turn a dense process into a calm guided path.
Clear UI elements, wireframes, prototypes, and user-testing materials make a complex public-service flow more legible. The work focuses on useful context, recognisable language, and an accessible pace.
- Progressive disclosure Ask for one understandable decision at a time.
- Plain-language support Explain terminology at the point of need, rather than sending people away to decode it.
- Reassurance Make status, progress, next steps, and recovery paths visible.
- Accessible pace Avoid relying on colour, speed, or prior tax knowledge to move forward.
Evidence
Show the reasoning without exposing the service.
The public narrative is intentionally high-level. It demonstrates the work through anonymised journey fragments, generic wireframes, accessibility annotations, and design rationale—without exposing private systems, taxpayer data, or official filing guidance.
Support at the moment of doubt
Place plain-language help beside unfamiliar tax terms instead of sending people elsewhere.
Keep confidence recoverable
Surface status, next steps, and a safe route back when something needs attention.
This is a portfolio case study, not an official tax service or source of filing advice.
Reflection
Trust is part of the interface.
In high-stakes public services, clarity, recovery, and transparency are core interaction outcomes. The next iteration should validate the calmness of the journey with moderated testing and track where people lose confidence—not only where they abandon a form.