HMRC Mobile App Digital Strategy.

Between 2018-20 we iteratively, but quickly, developed a design system for the app to create a consistent user experience and make it quicker and easier to design, build and grow.

The app was originally designed to closely mirror the online tax account. It displayed the same data and, for the most part, had a similar navigational structure so that as customers jumped between platforms it was familiar.

By 2022 the app had grown so much that the general architecture of the app was starting to struggle as new services were added. Speaking to users, with a long scrolling screen it was now proving difficult for users to find what they were looking for or know what they needed to do.

It was clear that the app needed to have a strategy for where it was going. How would customers use the app compared to the web? Where did the app fit in HMRC’s ecosystem?

I set out working with user research to understand how we could help users better, what they needed from us, prototyped and tested some initial concepts and created a video to get initial buy-in from senior stakeholders and digital directors including HMRC CEO, Jim Harra.

My objective became "Given customers had chosen to install the app on their devices and ‘have the tax man in their pockets’ how could we make best use of this opportunity."

Following buy-in we set to work mapping how the app architecture and services could work, continued testing ensuring that the vision could be delivered in an iterative way that utilised existing technology until new tech was built.

In the 24/25 tax year, the app had been used by over 4.1 million people up to November (compared to 2.6 million in the whole of 23/24). The vision for the app became a key part of HMRC’s overall strategic solution* for the way they want customers to interact with them in a drive to reduce call volumes.

In addition to the vision for the app this work has been instrumental in the Single Customer Account project and set the foundation of what it needed to achieve for customers. Many teams around HMRC have been pulled together to build out the architecture and do Discovery work that will enable some of this transformation work to be done for both the app and on the web as part of the Single Customer Account project.
* Source: House of Commons Treasury Committee meeting, 24 April 2024