Background

When people experience tax identity theft, it means someone used their social security number (SSN) to file fake taxes and get a refund. They usually find out when they try to e-file their taxes, and it gets rejected — someone else has already filed using their SSN. Or they receive a notice from the IRS in the mail.

To open a case with the IRS, people had to complete a paper form, and mail or fax it to the IRS. This new feature allows people to submit the form to the IRS electronically while also filing a identity theft report with the FTC.

Problems to solve, and constraints

When I joined the project, the team of contractors and federal staff had developed an alpha version of the feature, which they were ready to test with users. The challenges to solve for were:

• Users were now submitting two reports instead of one
• Communicating the difference between the report going to the FTC and the report going to the IRS
• Making it clear to users when their form was sent successfully and when it wasn’t
• Encouraging users to complete and submit their form accurately in one session, but not requiring any fields
• Due to timelines and other factors, we were locked into displaying the IRS form like an editable PDF

What we learned

• During usability testing, users consistently found the review screen confusing. They had to perform too many actions on this one screen, and lost their place in the process.
• We saw users struggle to scroll within the modal windows, and some did not see or read all the relevant info.
• After closing the modals, returning to the review screen was disorienting — one user called it “jarring” compared to the earlier experience of filling out the form.
• The visual cues showing whether a report was “reviewed” or “not reviewed” were not clear enough to users.
• When reviewing the IRS form, we saw users go into a different mode once presented an official-looking government form. They slowed down and moved more carefully, read the fine print, and started to second-guess their decisions. *Many users lingered at the bottom of the form to read the long disclaimer language about the Paperwork Reduction Act, which took away their focus from completing the task at hand.

What we changed

• We moved to a wizard-like experience, which guided users through the review process step by step.
• We got rid of the modals, so clicking through each screen was more consistent with the experience of the previous screens.
• The new screens included encouraging copy to reinforce what the user had just accomplished, along with visual cues like icons to show their progress.

During usability testing, we saw that these changes helped to focus users’ attention on one task at a time, and successfully submit their forms.