Reimagining in-product upsell integration and visibility on TurboTax

Intuit • Product Design Intern

Role

Product Design Intern

Team

TurboTax Canada Design and UX Research Team

Timeline

May - August 2024

Status

Handed off MVP

Overview

I redesigned TurboTax's upsell experience for premium features

Intuit is a global financial technology company that helps individuals and small businesses manage their finances through products like TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp. During my time as a Product Design Intern, I designed tax filing experiences for 5 million users at TurboTax Canada.

RESULT

An upsell experience optimized for high visibility and low disruptiveness

I conducted an end-to-end audit of the user's tax filing journey, from discovery to completed filing. Based on my findings from the audit and user interviews, I founded key pain points and redesigned TurboTax's Premium Pack upsell experience.

PROBLEM

Upsells are disrupting TurboTax customers

TurboTax provides different products based on how much help someone wants from a tax expert. But throughout the filing process, customers are repeatedly asked to upgrade. These prompts can feel disruptive and confusing.

Disruptive upsells = less customer satisfaction

Upsell disruptiveness directly affects customer trust, satisfaction, and conversion. When upsells feel unclear or intrusive, users may become frustrated or lose confidence in the brand. By improving the upsell experience to be clearer and more aligned with user needs, TurboTax can drive more meaningful upgrade conversions and continue long-term customer trust.

USER RESEARCH

User interviews

To identify ways to improve the product and conduct user testing, my design team regularly conducted dozens of user interviews every week. An emerging theme from these interviews was that users would be interrupted by upsell messages as they were going through the user flow:

In addition to upsell prompts being frustrating, the prompts themselves were unclear in the value Premium Pack could provide to customers:

Customer pain points

Upsell fatigue

Customers get interrupted by several upsells when completing tax filing tasks in a linear flow

Trust and certainty

Frequent and disruptive upsells lead customers to question the value of upgrades

Unclear value of Premium Pack

Customers do not fully understand what the Premium Pack includes or why it is worth paying extra

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Identifying a sweet spot for upsell formats and info hierarchy

TurboTax sits between minimal and text-dense competitors: by simplifying visuals and emphasizing key benefits, we can feel modern and approachable while still building trust, capturing users who want clarity and confidence.

Goals

Reduce upsell fatigue, maintain customer trust, and increase upsells

The goal is to soften the disruptiveness of upsells in the customer experience to reduce upsell fatigue and maintain customer trust, and make upsell content visible and informative for users, to ultimately result in more Premium Pack sales. The ideal state of the upsell prompt is both highly visible and minimally disruptive.

DESIGN CHALLENGE #1

Premium Pack content redesign

Considering the content and information hierarchy of competitors and requests for a clearer explanation of premium features in user interviews, I redesigned the outdated full-screen takeover screen that users are taken to when they navigate to an upsell prompt.

DESIGN CHALLENGE #2

Redesigning the upsell prompt integration experience

I iterated on four different ways to integrate upsells into the user's in-product experience, optimizing for high visibility and low disruptiveness.

Evaluating my upsell integration ideas

I compared my four upsell integration design iterations on visibility and disruptiveness for users. I determined that overall, the Persistent Expandable Card design solution provided the most visibility into the upsell with the least disruption to the user's tax filing workflow.

FINAL DESIGNS

A highly visible, non-disruptive Premium Pack upgrade experience

I iterated four different ways to integrate upsells into the user's in-product experience, optimizing for high visibility and low disruptiveness.

REFLECTION

Key Learnings

Customer empathy

I learned not to assume users will interact with designs as intended. Ensuring upgrade prompts are visible but not disruptive opened my mind to various edge cases, particularly when designing for TurboTax's non-linear user flow.

Working with a complex design system

This summer at Intuit was my first time working with a mature and complex design system. I learned how to navigate its constraints and collaborate closely with designers and developers, balancing component specifications and technical limitations to deliver the best possible outcome.

Internship Highlights

Intuit TurboTax Design Team

I experienced how large cross-functional teams align on design decisions on diverse products

Leading team activities

Held an origami workshop for fun at the office

Mentorship

I learned and gained feedback from a team of incredible senior designers at Intuit

Config in San Francisco

I attended Config, Figma's annual design conference