Modernizing a complex legacy system to improve usability for employees and the public
United States Tax Court
The United States Tax Court (USTC) needed a new case management system to track and manage cases through their entire lifecycle, from receiving petitions that contest federal taxes to scheduling trials to creating reports.
I led a team of designers, strategists, product managers, and engineers to launch this green field system ahead of schedule.
Overview
Role
Lead UX designer & researcher
Content strategist
The existing case management system was over 35 years old, failed to meet current user experience standards, and lacked essential functionality (like the ability for the public to file a petition electronically).
Key problems
Complex user flows — The system has over a dozen user types with different permissions, needs, and tasks
Offline processes — Cases were only initiated with a paper petition and many complicated processes were offline and manual
System ownership — Many employees helped in the creation of the existing system over years of use
Long-time usage — Most Tax Court users have been on the system for 20+ years and aren’t very tech savvy
Disconnected systems — New features were rolled out as a separate system/app that didn’t talk to the existing ones
Unique challenge
While the redesign effort was challenging due to the system’s complexity and depth, what was possibly even more challenging was navigating the change management for so many of these long-time users. Their workarounds — caused by system limitations and perpetuated through institutional knowledge silos and training — had become dogma. “This is the way we do it. We couldn’t possibly do it any other way.”
In order to get them on board, we designed in small, incremental chunks and conducted daily reviews with internal users to get feedback, explain why we made the choices we did, and build excitement. By the end of the project, they couldn’t wait to start using the system.
Uncovering hidden needs
Due to an iron-clad NDA, we weren’t able to see a single screen, piece of data, or line of code — I compared it to writing a movie adaption of a book we couldn’t read.
We relied on the Tax Court employees to describe what they were doing as they moved through the system. But since users had created so many workarounds due to their current system, they were unreliable narrators — explaining the workaround instead of the intended goal.
This required us to dig deep to understand what it was they were trying to accomplish and help them separate that from how they were doing things now.
The power of automation
One of the most time-consuming tasks was scheduling trials. It took a 3-person department several weeks of sorting through dozens of printed calendars and spreadsheets to create the schedule — they had to manually determine if the number and types of cases in a specific area triggered the need for a trial; review each case file to verify information; look at the judge’s availability and whether they’d been to that city in the last two years; and determine if there were any big events that day that could possibly cause issues (Mardi Gras, Super Bowl) . They repeated this every month.
We replaced this entire process with a literal “easy” button, essentially eliminating that department*.
*The employees were reassigned to another shorthanded department
The solution
My team delivered DAWSON, a built-from-scratch system that improved the user experience, added critical functionality, incorporated time-saving automation, and gave greater access to the public.
Key improvements & results
Integrated all disparate systems into a single, easy-to-navigate platform, eliminating the need to bounce around or enter duplicative information into multiple systems
Introduced automation to create significant efficiency and eliminate manual processes (e.g., replacing a two-week process with a button)
Designed permission-based workflows and personalized views for the many personas so they could focus on their own tasks without unnecessary distractions
Added ability for public to submit petitions online, saving time and eliminating the chances of them getting lost in the mail
Created a mobile-friendly interface, so the public could interact with the system from their phones/tablets
Role of research
We continuously conducted interviews with all types of user roles and usability testing would be very favorable, But the system wasn’t just siloed tasks — rather a holistic flow that involved many handoffs between different personas.
To address this, we conducted an end-to-end roundtable usability test, where all user types were present and simulated processing a case from start to finish using real-life scenarios.
As a result, we found gaps in the handoff from one group to another, something we didn’t catch during earlier usability tests, which were limited to a single persona.
Timeline of all actions taken on the case
Documents associated with the case
Contact information for everyone involved in the case
Inbox of messages for a Docket Clerk
Petitioner dashboard after they've filed a case
