Overview
I joined TurboTax as the first and only dedicated designer on Verified Pro, a brand new, dual-sided marketplace. Over the next two years that work grew into a much bigger bet: pivoting Full Service from a software experience into a human-led product built to win the prior-year assisted market. I led the design from provocation through vision prototype to launch, surviving a mid-stream reorg along the way, and helped shape the strategy the org ultimately moved forward with.
Intuit
TurboTax Full Service
13.9M
people leave a tax professional every year and go looking for a new one
Today that search starts with Google and a string of screening calls.
Starting with Verified Pro
Verified Pro was the tip of the spear, and how I got to TurboTax in the first place. (The hint: it wasn’t to work on taxes.) It was a genuine 0-to-1 effort with a long list of firsts for Intuit: a dual-sided marketplace matching consumers with independent tax pros based on their situation, location, and more, with the ability to book a call, get started, and find another pro if the first wasn’t the right fit.
I was the only dedicated designer, working with a contract content designer and a borrowed researcher, partnering with five product managers, a design manager, and twelve engineers, while acting as design lead. Verified Pro proved the core insight that would define everything after it: when customers detach from one pro, half of them come back and work with another. People wanted the human, not just the software.
Referral share, shipped
21%
Referral share, forecast
5.2%
Also 84 NPS and 72 PRS at launch.
Provoking a New Vision
At the end of the season, as we iterated on Verified Pro for the next year, my provocations pushed hard on the idea of shopping for an expert, drawing inspiration from experiences like Airbnb. Then, in early May, I felt the ground start to shift. Sensing change coming, I started provoking on a bigger question: what if Verified Pro and Full Service were one product? How could independent pros and TurboTax’s own experts come together in a single place for consumers to shop?
Then the ground actually shifted. In May, Consumer Group reorganized and shelved the Verified Pro program with little support or resources. Ninety-five percent of the team was moved into Full Service. The message was essentially: now do it again. Rather than treat that as a setback, I used the lull to push my combined Verified Pro plus Full Service idea further, into a brand new app with the expert front and center. How might we make this experience feel more emotional?
The Vision Prototype
I built a full end-to-end prototype of the Full Service vision, grounded in a single principle: the expert is the product.
The prototype came directly from my own hands-on design work and from leading through influence to bring the rest of the org along. It walked through the entire journey: shopping for an expert, getting matched, and working together in a brand new, human-led app. I reviewed it with Consumer Group SLT, CEO Sasan Goodarzi, and Intuit founder Scott Cook.
“This is epic. Full stop.”
“The current conventional experience won't do it. You might be onto a breakthrough.”
Shopping for an Expert
Every screen was designed to build trust and reduce fear, using specific behavioral principles as tools rather than decoration. The experience opened by leading with experts for your local situation, gathered what we needed to make the right match, and even used a deliberate short delay to make our recommendations feel considered rather than random.
Meeting Your Match
The payoff moment was designed to feel human. We built emotional anticipation before the reveal, showed up to three recommended experts alongside the data we know drives confidence, and let customers go deeper into each expert before committing to the relationship.
Getting to Work
Choosing an expert created an engagement, the beginning of a real working relationship. Inside the Full Service Hub we connected customers to their expert automatically over chat, and taxes usually began with a one-way video call so experts could gather what they needed and help customers pull their documents together.
Results
We took everything we learned from Verified Pro and everything we knew about prior-year assisted customers and used it to disrupt the Full Service product, launching to an unprecedented 50% of customers in early tax season. The new shopping experience pulled dramatically more people into engagements and expert connections, and converted them at a higher rate end to end.
Metrics
45.40%
expert connection, against 20.50% on the prior experience
Launched to an unprecedented 50% of customers in early tax season.
Contribution
My Role
This is a high-level overview. In interviews and presentations I go deeper on strategy, process, and my direct contribution — get in touch if you'd like to see it.
