01
Taxfix | Market Expansion
Adapting a tax-filing product to meet legal, cultural, and emotional needs of a new market.
Role:
Design Lead
Industry:
Fintech
Duration:
1 year
Challenges
Taxfix is Germany's most popular tax filing app. It's an expert service to help have your taxes done quickly, easily, and without any complications. After a successful 3 years on the German market, we wanted to launch our first expansion market in Italy. In this project, I led a structured design process: research, hypothesis testing, prototyping, and MVP development—delivered within an ambitious timeline of 1 year to hit the 2020 tax season.
My Approach
Understand
I led an onsite research trip in Milan to conducte in-depth qualitative research with early users to surface pain points, expectations, and support gaps.
Identified what makes Italy unique:
Tax filers often lacked employer support and needed comprehensive submission guidance.
Users were overwhelmed by document prep and legal vocabulary.
Many relied on publicly funded accountants, but wanted more control.
Design & Develop
Mapped the information architecture from scratch.
Designed new wireframes and flows that prioritized legal accuracy and emotional simplicity.
Organized and led onsite user testing in Italy
Tested multiple onboarding and declaration flows to reduce dropout and cognitive load.
Co-created content with Italian accountants to ensure clarity in legal summaries.
Results
We landed on three high-impact UX improvements:
1. Targeted Localization: The main goal of expansion was understanding what we could reuse, and what needs to be built new. Smart uploads of localized documents, like the 730 Tax Form, were prioritized and design from scratch.
2. Declaration Navigation: Clearer progression through steps with more guidance and reassurance per screen was essential to reduce ambiguity during critical document upload moments.
3. Improved Summaries: Redesigned the final tax summary into a friendly, digestible format helped users now understood what they were submitting—and why.
Future Plans
Taxfix Italy launched successfully for the 2019 tax season.
Product fit achieved through deep localization
Built the foundation for future EU market expansion
Defined repeatable frameworks for entering new countries with legal, linguistic, and user empathy alignment
Conclusion
This wasn’t just a product launch—it was a trust-building exercise in a highly sensitive space.
By embedding user research, local compliance needs, and emotional insight into our design work, we helped people in Italy file with confidence, not confusion.