Fintech · Product Suite + Design System

TaxRise Client Platform

Three tax tools, one platform

The redesigned TaxRise Client Portal home on a soft blue gradient: the Phase 2 journey card, an upcoming $500 payment, case status waiting on documents, the to-do list and shortcuts

Role: Lead Product Designer
Team: Me leading two designers, with product and engineering
Scope: Design audit · Design system · Client Portal · Tax Organizer · Financial Profile · Second pass
Read: 3 min

01/The project

One client journey, built as three products

TaxRise helps people settle tax debt with the IRS. Each case runs through three tools: the Client Portal for the case, documents and payments, the Tax Organizer for unfiled years, and the Financial Profile for the money details TaxRise negotiates with. Built on Salesforce at different times, they didn't feel like one product.

I led two designers through the rebuild that shipped. Then I went back over all three with fresh eyes. That second pass is a concept for now, and it's most of this page.

013 products
0282 screens in the second pass
03Lead designer, team of 3
04The second pass is a concept

02/At a glance

First question: where's my case?

The Client Portal home, and a few of the cards that carry the platform. Each one is the real component.

The phase leadsWhere the case stands is why anyone opens the portal, so it comes first. The next payment and what's still missing sit beside it.

Five unfiled yearsYears run oldest to newest so the trend reads left to right, with the peak year called out.

Small cards, one job eachDocuments received, the tax year in progress, an income average and the time left.

03/What shipped

The version that shipped

To a client it was one journey. On screen it was three products, each with its own buttons, inputs and cards. All three sat on Salesforce, which limited how far we could take the design. We wanted to own it, so we moved off Salesforce, audited every component side by side, and rebuilt the three on one design system.

From late 2025 into 2026 I led two junior designers. They ran the research and critiques and gathered feedback from the team. I built the design system, its guidelines and components, and set the visual direction for the Client Portal and the Financial Profile. They designed the remaining flows on that system.

The hardest call was the portal home. We wanted support chat, tickets and a detailed case status. Engineering had to build the infrastructure first, on a short timeline. So we shipped a simple case status up front and left the rest for later.

All three products shipped. Before, clients struggled to find their case status, their case manager and what they still had to do. Since launch, UX observation, surveys and feedback on calls show them finishing those tasks more confidently and more accurately. I have no numbers I can share.

Looking again, a few screens still made clients do the work. That's where the second pass started.

04/Second pass

Four places it still asked too much

Clients were still doing work we should have done for them: finding their own status, counting their own documents, digging for their own numbers.

Home, before and after3.0 gave journey, status and payment equal weight and listed the finished task first. Now the phase leads and open tasks come first.

The money, firstLiquid assets, debt and loan payments decide a resolution, so they lead, then owned against owed.

A grid of boxes became a ledgerDeductions read top to bottom like the form they feed, with a hint under each line and the empty ones tucked away.

Progress, not Start buttonsEvery request said Start, which told nobody anything. Now each shows its file count.

05/One answer at a time

A lot to ask for, one answer at a time

Then there's the asking: a full year of tax details and a complete picture of someone's finances. My rule was to ask for the smallest thing first, and never make anyone type what we already know.

Confirm, or change it in one listFiling status carries over from the Financial Profile to confirm. If it changed, all five sit in one list.

One slot per monthA missing statement is obvious at a glance, and an upload says when it's done.

A payment in four short stepsA summary fills in beside the steps, and the end says scheduled, not paid, which is true.

06/One system

Calm enough to trust with tax

My first direction looked like trendy SaaS: black cards, heavy shadows, mesh gradients. Wrong for tax. Five rounds of critique later, the system behind all three is plainer.

Flat white cards on a neutral grey, one gradient card per screen, and colour only where it means something: a status, a piece of data, or the one thing to press.

Every card from one systemAll three products share the same parts, so moving between them never means relearning a button.

07/The screens

The screens, product by product

A few of the 82 screens in the second pass, one product at a time.

Client Portal

Where a client keeps track of their case

DocumentsEvery request with its own count, and one card that adds them up.

UploadDrop a statement on its month and the slot shows it uploading, then done.

Payment reviewThe last step reads back what will happen, then confirms it's scheduled.

Financial summaryThe household snapshot leads, the details follow.

Tax Organizer

Eight unfiled years, one at a time

Your tax yearsEvery year at a glance, and the one in progress first.

Pick up where you left offOne card to carry on with 2020.

Filing statusFive statuses, one list, a line on each.

DeductionsStandard against itemized, the bigger one recommended.

Financial Profile

The money details, mostly confirmed rather than typed

OverviewFour short steps, and what we already found.

A mortgage we foundShown as a record, answered in plain words.

Asset summaryTotals stay in view, and Remove moved into a menu.

08/What's next

What I'd want to measure

The redesign hasn't shipped, so there are no results to report yet. If it does, three numbers would tell me whether it worked: how many clients finish the Financial Profile in one sitting, how often uploads get sent back, and how many support questions are really asking where a case stands.

The first pass made three products feel like one. This one is about making that one product ask less of the people using it.

More work

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