UX Design to deal with government bureaucracy

Day 1 to become an UX designer (see the previous blog post for my background) is to deal with tax bureaucracy in my country of residence, Japan, which unexpectedly turns out to be a field study of what UX design should be.

Specifically, I have submitted an application to register as a sole trader.

I don’t plan to do business anytime soon, but most likely I’ll be launching an app on my own and earning income from subscription fees as a sole trader. With such experiences, potential employers will then start showing an interest in me. That’s my survival strategy.

I did some research on being a sole trader, or kojin-jigyo-nushi (個人事業主), in Japan. I have learned that, by declaring incomes with the so-called Blue Return form, or ao-iro-shinkoku (青空申告), sole traders can carry forward deficits to the following three years, thus saving income taxes to pay. Income declaration with the Blue Return form requires an application to be a sole trader submitted to tax office.

Carrying forward deficits reduces income tax in the following way.

Say, you lose 1 million Japanese yen for the first year. Then you make a profit of 1 million yen for the second year. In total you break even.

Without declaring income with the Blue Return for the first year, however, you will have to pay income tax in the second year.

With the Blue Return for the first year, your income will instead be regarded as zero in the second year and thus no tax to pay.

Consequently, future sole traders are better off by declaring (negative) incomes with the Blue Return form as soon as possible.

For this purpose, I need to register as a sole trader at tax office.

Now a field study on UX design starts. The Japanese government has set up a horrible user experience. The application demands a postage of paper forms because a seal is required as personal identification. Yes, I’m talking about the 21st century.

Plus, a national identification number, only very recently introduced in Japan, has to be hand-written in the paper form. Yes, I’m talking about the 21st century.

And there are four paper forms in total, two of which are copies of the other two to be returned from tax office once approved. You have to write down your name and other pieces of information four times… Yes, I’m still talking about the 21st century. :-)

Thankfully, this anachronistic, badly-designed procedure to become a sole trader in Japan can be simplified a lot with the help of Freee, a web app service for entrepreneurs in Japan that many people on the web talk about (it’s among the Fintech 250 in 2018). As a trial of their service, Freee offers an interactive webpage to fill in the application form to be registered as a sole trader, for free of charge.

Instead of writing down your name and other pieces of personal information on each of the four paper forms, Freee asks you to type only once in a simple, clear-cut user interface:

The top row of three circles indicates the number of steps required: it’s just three. This indication gives comfort to an user: otherwise he or she wouldn’t be sure how long the process will take.

Each of the first two steps shows you five or six boxes. Clicking each expands the box to allow you to choose or type a piece of information needed to fill in the forms:

Once you click the blue button to confirm, the box shrinks, only showing the information you have typed:

This lets you overview the whole process. You then click the next box to enter another piece of information. This way, the user interface allows you to focus on each single piece of your personal information, minimizing your cognitive load.

The buttons to move on are all colored in the same shade of blue (e.g. in the above screenshot the one at the bottom takes you to next step). Consequently, clicking the blue button syncs with your mind getting ready for next step.

Once reaching the last of the three steps, the screen instructs you where to submit your paperwork (i.e. the relevant local tax office, based on your address), together with a Google map (the form can be handed in upon a visit to the tax office):

This piece of information would otherwise be what you have to figure out by clicking several times across government webpages.

Then the four application forms, all filled in, can be downloaded as a PDF copy with the cover sheet clearly indicating where to stamp your seal and to hand-write your national identification number:

The cover sheet even includes the address label of the relevant local tax office to stick on the envelope (the bottom left in the above screenshot).

Then the screen starts an advertisement of Freee’s services, with three monthly payment plans offered:

This type of alluring users to sign up for services usually turns me off. But my user experience had been so pleasant that I seriously didn’t mind signing up.

What a well designed user experience! I was thrilled, excited and inspired. This is what I want to do: simplify the unnecessarily complicated.