~18%
Estimated reduction in user drop-off via streamlined onboarding
7→4
Screens reduced from original onboarding concept to final flow
~30%
Manual scheduling coordination reduced through self-serve booking
2019
My first formal app wireframe engagement, the spark that redirected my path
01
The client relationship
It started with Google Ads and ended with a product concept
W² Tax Service was a prospect I first encountered during my time in advertising and digital marketing. After a couple of meetings, she became a client, and I got to work building her digital presence: Google Ads, local directory listings, and placement in printed YP.com books.
But advertising wasn't the only thing she noticed. She saw the way I thought about layout, cohesion, and visual clarity. She was aware of my web design background, my history in branding and graphic design, and my instinct for making complex things feel simple and trustworthy. That shared language built something over time. We weren't just client and vendor, we were collaborators who respected each other's craft.
"She didn't just want an app. She wanted her clients to feel taken care of, from the first tap to the filed return."
A few years into that relationship, she came to me with a new kind of ask. She wanted to build an app, something that would let her clients submit their W-2 forms digitally, track their refund status, and return each year to pick up exactly where they left off. Her reference point was H&R Block. Her instinct was right. And she trusted me to help her get there.
FinTech
Mobile UX
Onboarding Design
Freelance
Origin Story
A first-time app project, and I didn't pretend otherwise
This was my first real experience wireframing for a mobile app. I knew websites. I knew brand systems. I knew how to design for clarity and emotional trust. But an app, with its distinct flows, interaction patterns, and execution complexity, was genuinely new territory.
I didn't let that stop me. I did what any good designer does when they're at the edge of their expertise: I researched. I studied peer work on Upwork and Fiverr. I mapped out typical deliverables for this kind of engagement, realistic timelines, how designers structured their process, and what clients in this space actually needed from a first engagement. It wasn't just research for this project, it was research that would pay forward for years.
📱
App UX is a different discipline
Unlike web design, mobile apps require thinking in flows and states, not just pages. Navigation logic, gesture expectations, and screen transitions all carry user assumptions I had to learn to honor.
🔍
Research before proposals
I reviewed comparable apps in the tax and finance space, H&R Block, TurboTax, Cash App, to understand onboarding patterns, trust signals, and document submission flows that users already understood.
⏱
Scope and expectations
I studied how peers on freelance platforms scoped similar projects, what a realistic wireframe deliverable looked like, how to communicate design decisions to a non-technical client, and where to draw honest scope boundaries.
🤝
Honesty as the design decision
I was transparent with her about what I could and couldn't deliver solo. I could give her the concept, the flows, and the visual language. Execution, a functioning, tested product, required a development team. That honesty was the most important design decision of the project.
Tax filing is stressful. The experience doesn't have to be.
Her clients, mostly individuals and families, many returning year after year, had a simple emotional need underneath the functional one: they wanted to feel like they were in good hands. Tax season already carries anxiety. A confusing or cold digital experience would make that worse, not better.
The core friction points were clear:
What her clients had to do before this existed
1
Call or email
Initiate contact with the office to start
2
Gather docs
Find W-2s, prior returns, supporting forms
3
Drop off / scan
Physical or email delivery only, no self-serve
4
Wait and wonder
No status visibility until the preparer reached out
Every step required manual coordination on her end. New clients had no easy way to start. Returning clients had no digital thread connecting their history. And no one had visibility into where their return stood without a phone call. The app wasn't just a convenience feature, it was a trust infrastructure she didn't have yet.
Three flows that had to feel effortless
The most important moment in any app is the first one. I designed the onboarding to immediately ask one simple question: are you new, or are you coming back? A returning client shouldn't have to re-introduce themselves to a business that already knows them. Routing them to their previous return, pre-loaded and pre-contextualized, communicates trust before a word of copy does.
The insight: emotional UX isn't about warmth in the writing. It's about not making people prove they exist to a business that already knows them.
Tax forms intimidate people. The upload screen needed to make the action feel small and manageable, not bureaucratic. I designed a clean upload zone with camera scanning as the primary action, because most people have their W-2 in front of them on paper, not as a file on their phone. Reducing the cognitive load of "how do I get this thing into the app" was the entire design problem.
📋
Tax Prep
Individual & family
⚖️
Wills & Trusts
Estate planning
The insight: designing for anxiety means removing every unnecessary decision. If they can do it in one tap (camera scan), that's the primary path.
Her clients ultimately needed to meet with her. That appointment was the final handshake between digital preparation and human expertise. I designed scheduling directly into the submission flow, not as a separate feature, but as the natural last step after uploading documents. When you've just submitted your W-2, the next question is obvious: when can we meet? The app should know that, and ask it.
The insight: a flow that ends in ambiguity ("we'll be in touch") creates anxiety. A flow that ends in a confirmed appointment creates relief. That's the product.
What I'd tell myself, and what I still carry forward
→
Product design is a team sport, always
Even at the concept stage, I knew this work was incomplete without a developer, a QA engineer, and someone who understood backend compliance for financial data. The wireframes were strong. The vision was clear. But I was honest with her, and honest with myself, that what I could deliver was the design half of a full product. That clarity protected the relationship and set realistic expectations for what came next.
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Research is a design deliverable too
The months I spent studying how other designers approached this kind of engagement, scoping, pricing, timelines, handoff formats, weren't just preparation for this project. They were preparation for a career. That deep research phase built the foundation I still stand on when I scope new product work today.
★
The project that pointed the arrow
I didn't fully understand it at the time, but this was the moment I realized product design wasn't a category I was adjacent to, it was the thing I actually wanted to be doing. The research, the flows, the questions about what users felt at each step, the challenge of making something functionally clear and emotionally reassuring, that combination lit something up. This is the project I point to when someone asks when I knew.
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What knowing more now doesn't change
Knowing what I know today about product systems, developer handoffs, accessibility standards, and data privacy in financial apps, I'd approach the execution phase differently. But the instincts were right: lead with the user's emotional state, reduce friction at every decision point, and make the returning user feel recognized. Those principles haven't changed. They've deepened.
What this project is really about
W² Tax Service wasn't a big corporate engagement. It was a friendship, a handshake, and a genuine problem worth solving, and that combination is often where the most honest design work happens.
I brought everything I had: digital marketing knowledge, brand instincts, web design experience, and a new determination to figure out what mobile product design actually required. I didn't pretend to have all the answers. I researched until I could have an honest conversation about scope, capability, and what success would actually look like.
The wireframes we built together gave her a tangible vision, something she could take to a development team and say "this is what I want it to feel like." That's not a small thing. Giving someone a clear picture of a possible future is product design at its most fundamental.
And for me, it was the first time I looked at a product concept and thought: I want to keep doing this. That clarity was worth more than any delivered feature.
