MFA Interaction Design thesis project at the Umeå Institute of Design
Skills: human centered design, ethnographic research, life centred design, speculative design, social design, research through design, storytelling, app design, concept ideation, AI and blockchain exploration.
Recognition: Golden Seed Sustainability Award 2021, Selected Graduate - Global Grad Show 2022

RESEARCH CHallenge

Tax touchpoints are often designed for the system behind them rather than for the humans interacting with them. This means that the value of taxes for the individual, society and the environment is often lost in the experience. If it is so hard for us to engage with our taxes is the system truly democratic? Could evolving technology like AI and blockchain give us the opportunity to reframe how we engage with tax and make it more inclusive? An how does the non human life environment fit in with all this?

How could we rethink the design space around tax in order to be able to create interactions that are more human, enriching and empowering?

RESult

Trax is a platform which allows people to engage with the value of taxes to the individual, society and the environment. Using 'tax tokens' people of different ages are given a more direct say into what government budgets should be supporting in their local area. The journey of allocated tax tokens can then be tracked in a fun way, highlighting their indirect impact on what we care most about.

Design lenses generated from this project can also be used for future ideation in the space of taxes by creating inspiration start points that can be used by people working in shaping and framing different interactions with taxes.

Allocate Tokens for Increased Agency

Using tax tokens people can bring attention to those things they care about in their environment. They are then shown the likely destinations for where the token will be most useful for that specific care point.

Tracking For Transparency

People can track the journey of their token through to the each step of the allocation decision process.

Trace

As they are out and about, people can explore how some of their tax contributions have supported the local area, increasing a feeling of input and belonging to their local area.

I used the themes and insights from the explore stage to generate design lenses which mapped the design space around tax. This allowed the topic of tax to be broken open so that each lense could be used as a starting point from which to start ideating.

Probes

Throughout the research process, I generated probe provocations based on insights I was gaining from user experiences which I then brought back to them in interview workshops to gain feedback feedback reflection to move forward with my process. It also helped to validate my interpretation of their perspective and gave them a chance to challenge my own perceptions and biases.

Workshopping future scenarios and systems

As part of the ideation process I also wanted to explore potential future worlds in which a tax touchpoint might exist as well as the systems it might be built into. I ran two ideation workshops in order to explore this which helped contextualise the concept. On valuable output of the systems workshop was a clear outline of values for what an ideal system should adhere to. A more detailed explanation for these workshops can be found in the project report.

Establishing a direction

By using the probes to workshop with users, a clear hierarchy of importance became apparent in what to prioritise throughout my design process. It became apparent that visibility was an predominant theme across many of the different probes generated. The other lenses and principles were important too and provided and important foundation from which to work with.

When making decisions about the concept of Trax, I speculated with users over the potential long term impact of its features. This helped refine the concept and understand where it was important to put limitations.

Agency

How much agency do we really want to give people in terms of allocating tax? Do we really want to live in a world where different government departments have to campaign to the public for funds?

Non Human Life

What would involving non human life forms look like in the context of civic duty like tax? Where is the line between anthropomorphisation and inclusion?

Citizens pay their taxes, which the government uses to divide up and equally distribute. People can then allocate tokens to the things they care about in their immediate environment and trace how their government has allocated its budgets to those things.