How we designed ‘Tax Optimiser’ on Save Right app : A UX Case Study
Let me take you through the process of redesigning Tax Optimiser, a feature that provides salaried employees with a personalized tax-saving plan.
About Me
As the product designer for Save Right, I spearheaded the ideation of early concepts, facilitated design exercises, conducted regular presentations to leadership, and delivered final assets for production. I collaborated with a team consisting of a Project Manager and two Developers.
About Save Right
Save Right is a Fintech start-up helping salaried employees make better financial decisions. With a wide range of features, including Digital Gold investments, Mutual Funds investments and more, Save Right aims to revolutionize the way salaried employees manage their finances.
In this case study, I will focus on the Tax Optimiser feature on Save Right app.
Introduction
Many salaried employees in India don’t understand terms like HRA, NPS, Mutual Funds ELSS, etc. Employees don’t know how they can use these instruments to save tax.
According to a survey from Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center, only 24% of Indian adult population is financially literate.
India actually ranks the lowest among all the BRICS nations, as per a survey conducted by National Center for Financial Education in 2019. Many salaried employees take help of chartered accountants or ask their family members to manage their taxes. To combat this problem Save Right came up with Tax Optimiser.
What is Tax Optimiser?
Tax Optimiser is a feature that provides salaried employees with a personalised tax-saving plan.
- It suggests the best tax regime for maximum tax savings and offers valuable insights on various tax-saving instruments like HRA(House Rent Allowance), NPS(National Pension Scheme), Health Insurance and ELSS Mutual Funds.
- Users can effortlessly upload their Form-16 or enter their CTC salary to unlock these personalised tax-saving recommendations.
Problems
Our team sat down to discuss the existing problems with Tax Optimiser. Here’s what we found:
- Higher drop-offs because users couldn’t find their Form-16.
- Users didn’t know how tax optimiser work.
- No clear information hierarchy.
- The overall design language was inconsistent.
Tax Optimiser is the hero feature of Save Right app, it was crucial for us to get this right.
Note: We have a WhatsApp group of about 200 users who gives us regular feedback.
Solutions
1. Using stories to explain Tax Optimiser
It was important for us to explain the working of Tax Optimiser because of two reasons:
- It is a unique feature. Hence, it was important to make it more familiar.
- Users will spend a lot of time in this feature and they must be informed about each step of the process.
To make users understand what is Tax Optimiser and how it works we decided to use stories and introduction screens.
Why stories?
We decided to use stories because of two reasons:
- They explain the feature in a concise manner.
- They serve as an additional entry point for Tax Optimiser.
2. Let users enter their CTC salary
We observed that a lot of users were dropping off, users were not uploading their Form-16 because:
- It was a hassle to find and upload their Form-16.
- Some users simply didn’t have their Form-16.
To solve this problem, we introduced the option of allowing users to enter their CTC salary, which made the process easier and faster.
Fun Fact: We used to call this feature “Form-16 Analyser”, but after introducing the option of entering CTC salary we changed it to Tax Optimiser.
3. Setting up clear information hierarchy
In the older version of Tax Optimiser, users often miss a lot of important information in their tax saving plan just because of poor information hierarchy.
- The most important information was not emphasised.
- Because of poor layout, users had to scroll a lot to find exactly how much tax they can save.
- Some information was missing, we didn’t explain terms like HRA, NPS, etc or their benefits.
To solve these problems, we decided to split up the information into smaller parts and provide a dedicated screen for each step.
Note: We ask the current CTC salary from users, even if they have uploaded their Form-16, since salaried employees typically receive their Form-16 at the end of financial year.
3.1 Potential tax savings screen
This section shows the potential tax savings that users can achieve by adhering to the Tax Optimiser tax saving guide, which includes selecting the appropriate tax regime and making investments in tax-saving instruments. It was important to place this screen at the beginning of the guide because it gives users motivation to take a look at the complete guide.
3.2 Choosing tax regime
This section suggests which tax regime the user should consider, and it presents comparison between the Old tax regime and the New tax regime.
3.3 Investing in tax saving instruments
In this section, there are four steps that cover HRA, Mutual Funds, Health Insurance, and NPS. Each step has its own dedicated screen featuring the following elements:
- Tax optimization and tax savings
- Eligibility
- Taxable income and net tax payable after deductions
- Definition and usage of tax-saving instruments
Note: The number of steps may differ for each employee because not everyone is eligible to claim every tax-saving instrument. For instance, we won’t show the HRA section to an employee who doesn’t live in a rented accommodation.
3.4 Summary of tax savings
The aim of this section is to provide users with an overview of their total tax savings, along with a breakdown of how much tax they have saved at each step. Additionally, it encourages users to reach out to Save Right’s tax experts for further assistance in tax savings.
Iterations/Before & After
1. Introduction screen
We redesigned the introduction screen to provide a clearer explanation of the feature to our users. Additionally, we made changes in the input screen due to the addition of the option to enter the CTC salary.
2. Potential tax savings screen
The previous version of this screen was giving too much information, the bar graphs had legibility issues and everything was aligned to the center which made the user experience slow and tiring.
3. Tax instrument stepper
The previous version of the stepper occupied excessive screen space and lacked clickability. To address this issue, we placed the new stepper at the bottom of the screen to enhance accessibility. The updated version also allows users to easily switch between different steps.
4. Summary screen
The summary screen was not showing the necessary information to the user.
- It didn’t show the recommended tax regime for the user.
- It did not display the details of taxable income and the net tax payable after deductions.
- The “Chat with tax expert” card lacked visibility and did not stand out as intended.
Impact
This new version of Tax Optimiser had a positive impact on the user experience
- We were able to increase the number of downloads and the count of active users on our platform.
- We received a lot of positive feedback from both existing and new users.
- While working on this feature, we successfully introduced new design components and elements to Tax Optimiser.
Note: Since we are a start-up we are trying to make our product better everyday by taking feedback from our users and making iterations.
My learnings
While working on Tax Optimiser, I learned valuable skills such as effectively communicating ideas to developers, sourcing inspiration, and employing logical problem-solving approaches.
However, the most important lesson I learned is that in a fast-paced startup environment, there isn’t always the luxury of extended user research or leisurely wireframing over several days. Instead, you need to remain agile, ready to work with the resources at hand and embrace a “fail fast” mindset. As a designer, adaptability is key in such a dynamic setting.
Get in touch
Thank you for reading this UX case study! Your feedback and thoughts are greatly appreciated. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to share them in the comments section.
If you’d like to get in touch with me, you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. I am always open to new opportunities in the product design field, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any projects or collaborations in mind.
Thank you for taking the time to read this case study. I look forward to connecting with you!
