Benefit Assist
Role: DIY User Researcher, Design Lead
Size: Scrum team of 1 Product Manager, 1 Program Manager, 4 Developers, 1 Designer, 1 PT Contract Researcher
Duration: 1 year
Skills: User Research | Interaction Design | Prototyping
Methods: Phone and Guerilla Interviews | Contextual Inquiry | Usability Testing in Lab and usertesting.com
Benefit Assist is a complementary product of Intuit TurboTax that enabled Americans to easily apply for government benefits using their tax data. This project required me to dive deep in understanding the culture behind receiving government benefits. Using key insights derived from field research, it was critical to then apply the right voice, tone, and visuals in order to engage with this particular segment.
Context
$65B of government benefits go unclaimed each year, but Americans are not aware if they qualify, find it too difficult to apply, and/or are embarrassed to receive benefits.
Customer Problem
I qualify for government benefits but I am not willing to apply/complete this process right now after filing my taxes.
Goal
Increase click-through from the post-filing dashboard to the Benefit Assist experience
Gaining Customer Empathy & Insights
To establish a base understanding of the current situation, our team called back several qualified "abandoners" of the TurboTax experience to understand what deterred them from applying for benefits. Our key insights were:
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The Benefit Assist card in the post-filing tax dashboard looked like an ad.
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Completing taxes is a marathon and is a natural state for pause, i.e., tax fatigue. Most did not even see the "Apply" call-to-action.
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Continuing forward implied commitment to receiving the benefit vs. just getting more info.
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A few were already receiving the benefit.
Continuing in this vein, we conducted interviews at Feeding America BBQs with CalFresh (state program for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) coordinators who help low-income families apply for grocery benefits. We also hit the streets of San Diego to talk to recipients of WIC (Women, Infants, and Children). Additional learnings include:
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There is a fear the government is watching your every move when applying online, especially after taxes. Within non-U.S. citizens, there is also a fear the government will take away their assets or children, or be deported.
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There is a strong stigma to receiving benefits, but are willing to apply when it involves supporting children.
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Often applicants will talk amongst their friends first about the program before being comfortable enough to apply through a coordinator.
While on a trip to D.C. to conduct government affairs business with the Department of Human Services, I conducted contextual inquiries of the in-take and review process of SNAP applications to understand the full journey of what happens to our applications once our customers submit them. We had been inundating the state offices' fax machines with more applications to review. The staff was not resourced appropriately to handle the sheer volume that came their way. Each application alone took approximately 20-30 minutes to manually process and request follow-up paperwork from the applicant if missing.
I was also able to make a stop at the Service Center, where all benefits applications are done in person. Pictured below is a DMV-like waiting room where applicants first waited in line to triage the type of service needed, were given a number, and then called back to meet with a caseworker to apply for new benefits, recertify, or complete an express request, After I casually interviewed an applicant waiting her turn, it was clear the process was painful, sometimes requiring return visits. This potentially meant if appointments were missed or any information could not be supplied in a timely manner, benefits would not be fulfilled.
Designing for Better Click-through
I first devised the following hypotheses around why there was not significant click-through.
The post-file dashboard is too late to first inform customers of what Benefit Assist is. By strategically planting the seed during tax prep, customers will become familiar and curious enough to engage after finishing their taxes.
The "Apply" call-to-action gets lost on the post-file dashboard. By moving this information up in the flow and giving it a dedicated screen, customers will have better visibility to the benefit.
Customers fear committing to what is behind the “Apply” button and have unanswered questions/concerns. By providing a "Tell me more" door, customers can alleviate their concerns.
A
A
B
C
Then, I identified the touch points within the tax prep journey where design could help solve this problem.
Below is a glimpse of the designs used to test each hypothesis. Each prototype simulated the tax experience, some including various recipes to test for the best outcome.
A. PLANTING THE SEED THROUGHOUT TAX PREP
Recipe A - remind me later
Recipe C - relevant and FREE
Recipe B - trusted badge
Recipe D - standalone page
B. PRE-DASHBOARD DEDICATED SCREEN
Recipe A - finish up
Recipe B - social proof
Recipe C - access money
C. "TELL ME MORE" FLOW (NO RECIPES)
Learnings & Outcomes
Adding an additional page within the Deductions and Credits topic meant having the work prioritized and developed by a different team. At the time, we were unable to get this work prioritized however the insights we gained on icons influenced our final post-file dashboard design.
A. PLANTING THE SEED THROUGHOUT TAX PREP
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Of all the recipes, a standalone page resonated much better rather than piggybacking off of another page. This provided a moment of pause and avoided confusion of whether Benefit Assist was part of another credit.
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A visual that reflected the pay-off was most effective vs. anything money-related (stack of money, dollar signs, etc) or any type of Benefit Assist branded badge with a government building (which often led to negative connotations). Icons such as a shopping cart full of food or a full grocery bag led us to the final icon that was used.
OUTCOME
OUTCOME
B. PRE-DASHBOARD DEDICATED SCREEN
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It was still a struggle to convince a qualified applicant to accept the help. (“I would only apply if I had no food.” / “I don’t want to take money from people who really need it.”)
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Seeing a personalized dollar amount and knowing the amount of effort involved were significant factors to applying.
After looking across the end-to-end experience and reviewing with Leadership, it was a tough sell to place a Benefit Assist cross-sell at the end of the filing experience and could potentially be a huge risk for abandonment. Detouring to the BA experience would provide a poor bookended experience with no context of one’s tax return / refund status.
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Participants were hungry to learn about what types of benefits were offered.
A. PLANTING THE SEED THROUGHOUT TAX PREP
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Of all the recipes, a standalone page resonated much better rather than piggybacking off of another page. This provided a moment of pause and avoided confusion of whether Benefit Assist was part of another credit.
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A visual that reflected the pay-off was most effective vs. anything money-related (stack of money, dollar signs, etc) or any type of Benefit Assist branded badge with a government building (which often led to negative connotations). Icons such as a shopping cart full of food or a full grocery bag led us to the final icon that was used.
OUTCOME
OUTCOME
C. "TELL ME MORE" FLOW
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The content was informative, flowed well, and had a clean layout.
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Participants who had been through the traditional benefit application process were skeptical and felt it was oversimplified.
Of all the experiments, this was our most successful and actionable since our team owned the tech stack to implement this solution. This flow as well as the card design in the post-file dashboard continued to be iterated on and tested.
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The most important info a customer wanted was (in rank order): how much money they'd receive, what kind of info was needed from them, how long the process would take, and the ability to save and come back.
End of Season Results
When comparing the total amount of click-through percentage from this season against the previous tax year, click-through had significantly decreased. Several factors could have attributed to this result including:
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a legislative change that dropped the Federal Poverty Limit from 200% to 130%, therefore qualifying fewer people
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a more accurate algorithm to ensure more qualified candidates could see the Benefit Assist offer in the post-file dashboard
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stricter requirements around the 7216 IRS consent agreement, which could have deterred customers from sharing their tax data with another TurboTax product
Since then, the product has been sunset, but continues to be a sound case study for future applications of tax data.