A new way to do taxes

Fiscozen is a digital platform with real accountants and tax advisors that helps freelancers and self-employed people in Italy deal with taxes, invoices and paperwork.

I redesigned Fiscozen’s tax return (Dichiarazione dei Redditi) from scratch for the new mobile app, turning it into a guided path made of “stops”, like a subway map. I worked with the PM and with Fiscozen’s accountants.

Fiscozen’s app was built almost entirely for desktop. After the full redesign, users could finally use it on their phones, but one of the most important parts of the product was missing, together with invoicing: the tax return. The founder asked us to bring it to the new mobile app as soon as possible, with a clear brief: make it as guided as possible, while still letting people go back and forth.

For any freelance, the tax return is complex and stressful.

It’s full of technical terms, and mistakes have real consequences. The old version didn’t help:

• an outdated interface, disconnected from the new look of the app;
• built for desktop only;
• based on a natural language form (NLF), which left almost no room to explain what each field was asking for;
• far from the idea of a “guide” that was becoming the principle behind the whole product.

A survey I had run the year before on a sample of users showed that only 5% completed their return on a smartphone.

How we managed the problem

With the PM, I mapped the existing flows and used the old version only to understand which data we really needed. Then we talked to accountants and other stakeholders to clear up technical constraints and update the problems we had seen the year before. Everything else was redesigned from scratch.

The founder’s direction was clear, but there was room to decide how to build it. I pushed for a structure that is even more step by step.

A map of stops so you never get lost

The first screen only tells users what to do right now (“Tocca a te”, your turn), shows how many tasks are left (16) and where the path ends.

A summary to confirm, not a form to fill in

For each area (Family, for example), users see last year’s data next to what they still need to add, and they can confirm or come back later. The path is guided, but it doesn’t force anyone.

One question at a time

I dropped the natural language form. Every piece of data gets its own question in plain language (for example, “When did you get married?”), with clear options for the answers. That leaves room to explain what we’re asking and why.