Opportunity

Coinbase was experiencing a new wave of attention following the crypto boom of 2021, resulting in a large audience of beginners eager to engage with crypto. In a notoriously opaque industry, Coinbase possessed a unique position as the most user-friendly gateway to the crypto world.

Problem

The issue is, crypto taxes are hard. Users were confused about what documents they needed to file for their crypto earnings and when to expect their tax documents. The existing experience lacked clarity and was cluttered with unnecessary information.

The previous live experience.

Making taxes suck less

I designed a number of states which incorporated necessary copy, tooltips, and notifications to clarify crypto taxation. Users were informed about the latest crypto tax rules and guided towards the appropriate documents for the current tax season. I validated the designs on UserTesting prior to engineering handoff.

It might not be flashy, but copy in the right places can do a surprising amount of good.

These designs were shipped in Q4 of 2022. A huge thank you to Lorna Qin, Lucy Aziz, Diana Simakhov, and the rest of the D&R Coinbase team for making this possible.