Turbo Tax is fairly widely known for making taxes easy. Obviously, ease-of-use is a huge element of delight on websites–especially for something like taxes, when it’s important to get it right.
But overall ease-of-use on Turbo Tax isn’t what I want to discuss here, because it wasn’t all that surprising (though the TT team certainly deserves kudos for it). What did surprise me about Turbo Tax were a few content choices that made doing our taxes—dare I say it?—kind of fun.
The Tax Return Ticker
As my husband and I dove into our taxes this past weekend, the first thing we noticed at the top was a ticker showing what we owed (or what was owed us). As we worked our way through the various sections, the ticker changed. But the numbers didn’t just change when the screen refreshed; they quickly counted all the way up or down to the destination number. The effect was similar to that of a slot machine.
Toward the end of the process, watching that ticker was almost as much fun as sitting at a winning slot machine. As we entered the last of our tax credit information, my husband exclaimed (tongue in cheek, but still), “Let’s see how much higher we can get it to go!”
That ticker wasn’t essential to making the site work. The final amount of the tax return (or tax owed) could have been saved to the end, leaving the user in the dark. Not as helpful as the feedback along the way, but it would have gotten the job done.
It also simply could have been presented along the way but refreshed as the screen changed. Just as useful as the scrolling ticker, but not as much fun.
Unexpected Commentary
I likely missed some of the comments Turbo Tax spit out, but the first one I caught came after we entered some information on education credits. After confirming all of our info, Turbo Tax declared, “School is cool.” Indeed.
The next instance I noticed was after we entered some tax deduction info. Then, Turbo Tax praised us: “Great job! That deduction will lower the amount of tax you’ll pay.” (I’m paraphrasing, as I do not have the exact page in front of me, but I do know we got a “Great job!”) A little silly, but thanks, Turbo Tax, for the validation.
Plain Language
Finally, while plain old, clear instructions aren’t as much fun as a ticker or pithy pats on the back, they are definitely reassuring. I actually spend quite a lot of time examining certain tax issues for my job, but I do not find it easy. It actually makes me kind of nervous.
So it calmed my nerves when Turbo Tax calmly told me, “Okay, now we’re going to find out if you’re eligible for X credit.” Or, “Now you have to make a decision. But we’ll help you decide. If you did not pay more than X this year, you probably don’t need to take this credit.” Again, paraphrasing, but the language was as clear and simple as that.
Confident I was done with that section, I could go back to looking for goofy little statements and cheering on the ticker. (So I’m easily amused.)
Really, it’s that confidence that made the whole experience delightful. I’m certainly not a tax expert, but the content and overall experience made me confident that my taxes were correct and complete.
Shouldn’t we all be striving to instill some measure of confidence in our users through our web content?
