EY: Global Tax Platform
EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world.
Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PWC, it is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms.
GTP Concept
Client's Request
Centralized Dashboard for Task Management:
- Provide a comprehensive overview of pending tasks, categorized by project and priority.
- Summarize the status of deliverables (e.g., on-time, delayed, late) for quick assessment.
Data-Driven Insights:
- Present data visualization tools (e.g., bar charts) to show active request statuses and top countries with overdue requests, helping identify bottlenecks or patterns.
Clean, Professional Design:
- Maintain brand alignment (e.g., using EY’s logo and corporate fonts/colors).
- Incorporate a modern, minimalistic aesthetic to ensure usability and a professional appearance.
My Approach
I employed a user-centered approach, prioritizing clarity and usability by organizing information into clear sections, using visual data like charts for quick insights, and highlighting key tasks with color-coded indicators. The design aligns with EY branding, offering intuitive navigation, task-based functionality, and a clean, professional aesthetic to enhance user efficiency and focus.
GTP Concept
About the Project
The EY Global Tax Platform (GTP) is a secure, cloud-based solution designed to transform finance and tax operations by integrating data from dashboards, reporting, and advanced analytics.
It offers end-to-end visibility, compliance, and value creation, enabling organizations to automate tax compliance on a global scale, achieve transparency, and make informed decisions through advanced analytics.
User Experience
EY GTP: Offers an intuitive user interface designed for efficiency and ease of use, enhancing the overall user experience.
User Challenges
User Training Requirements: The platform's advanced features require thorough user training. Without adequate training, users might find it challenging to fully leverage GTP's capabilities, leading to underutilization of its tools and analytics.
Data Security Concerns: As GTP handles sensitive financial and tax data, ensuring robust data security is paramount. Users must be vigilant about data protection measures to prevent unauthorized access and breaches.
Adaptation to Regulatory Changes: Keeping the platform updated with the latest tax laws and regulations across multiple jurisdictions requires continuous monitoring and adaptation, which can be resource-intensive.
Facing the Challenge
Addressing user challenges involves strategic planning, comprehensive user experience ideation, continuous user testing, and ongoing support to maximize the platform's benefits and ensure compliance with evolving tax regulations.
Solutions
When working through the design process, I focused on the following solutioning principles:
1. Streamlining Complexity
In the old GTP, data grids were overwhelming for users to digest information quickly. The new design streamlines this by focusing on the most relevant data while allowing flexibility for users to add or adjust columns as needed, promoting clarity and usability.
2. Improving Visual Hierarchy
The old GTP’s "Quicklinks" section lacked proper hierarchy, making key actions unintuitive and easily missed. The new design elevates important elements through better placement, visual distinction, and clickable card-based formats to enhance discoverability.
3. Enhanced Data Visualization
While the old system relied heavily on raw data tables, the new design incorporates visual data elements like charts and graphs, making insights more actionable and reducing reliance on manual interpretation.
4. Reducing Cognitive Load
The new design declutters the interface, prioritizing concise views and essential information to minimize scrolling and decision fatigue, especially evident in the concise task views and data summaries.
5. Modern Aesthetics and Interaction
The older design appears functional but outdated, while the new interface incorporates a cleaner, modern aesthetic with improved navigation and interactive elements, aligning better with user expectations and current design standards.
6. User-Centered Flexibility
The old system lacked user customization options, while the new design enables users to filter, sort, and personalize views, addressing diverse workflow needs and enhancing productivity.
In Summary
My overall approach reflects a clear shift towards prioritizing usability, efficiency, and user satisfaction by refining complex workflows into intuitive, visually engaging solutions.
For more detail see screenshots from my strategic user experience audit below.