SnapTax is the first mobile tax preparation app, launched in California in December 2009. It was the #1 finance app in the iTunes store – and featured in 'What's Hot' – for 10 weeks.
I was lead visual designer, and supporting interaction designer.
The showcase feature of SnapTax is customers can take a picture of the W-2 form and we scan it in with OCR. Very cool. That said, it's tricky: OCR requires a very specific kind of image, and a poor scan could lead to a letter from the IRS.
We had to create concise, clear picture-taking instructions that were detailed enough, yet didn't get in the way. We iterated, prototyped and tested with customers for months. The result: it worked, and was our #1 customer 'delighter'.
Once the photo was taken, the upload/OCR translation process itself took time. It was the only task in the app that took control out of the customer's hands for any length of time, so we took the opportunity to make it delightful.
I created possibly the most involved upload / processing animation on any iPhone app to date, complete with sound effects. It turned an irritating wait into something interesting and fun that was even mentioned in customer surveys.
We had to create custom interactions for some tasks that were unanticipated in iPhone interaction guidelines, We customized every single screen in the application, all the way through to rare program errors.
Our attention to detail worked. We sailed through the App store approval process in less than 48 hours, and were featured in 'What's Hot' in the iTunes Store for ten weeks.
