Context
The Dutch Tax Authority delivers digital services used by nearly every citizen and entrepreneur, with widely varying needs and digital skills. Bereaved citizens were required to complete multiple mandatory actions across separate tax and allowance systems. The legal order and system boundaries could not be changed.
That shifted my focus: not simplifying the steps, but restructuring how decisions were communicated and sequenced within those system boundaries. The real constraint wasn't the process. Citizens arrived overwhelmed, and afraid of making irreversible mistakes.
CHALLENGE
Help bereaved citizens understand and complete the required tax and allowance actions after the death of a partner or cohabitant, without adding confusion or increasing the risk of making mistakes.
MY ROLE
UX / Service Designer. I led the research, defined the strategic focus, drove stakeholder alignment and was responsible for the final design direction.
TIMELINE
Jan 2021 - Dec 2021
CLIENT
Belastingdienst
Context
The Dutch Tax Authority delivers digital services used by nearly every citizen and entrepreneur, with widely varying needs and digital skills. Bereaved citizens were required to complete multiple mandatory actions across separate tax and allowance systems. The legal order and system boundaries could not be changed.
That shifted my focus: not simplifying the steps, but restructuring how decisions were communicated and sequenced within those system boundaries. The real constraint wasn't the process. Citizens arrived overwhelmed, and afraid of making irreversible mistakes.
CHALLENGE
Help bereaved citizens understand and complete the required tax and allowance actions after the death of a partner or cohabitant, without adding confusion or increasing the risk of making mistakes.
MY ROLE
UX / Service Designer. I led the research, defined the strategic focus, drove stakeholder alignment and was responsible for the final design direction.
TIMELINE
Jan 2021 - Dec 2021
CLIENT
Belastingdienst
Context
The Dutch Tax Authority delivers digital services used by nearly every citizen and entrepreneur, with widely varying needs and digital skills. Bereaved citizens were required to complete multiple mandatory actions across separate tax and allowance systems. The legal order and system boundaries could not be changed.
That shifted my focus: not simplifying the steps, but restructuring how decisions were communicated and sequenced within those system boundaries. The real constraint wasn't the process. Citizens arrived overwhelmed, and afraid of making irreversible mistakes.
CHALLENGE
Help bereaved citizens understand and complete the required tax and allowance actions after the death of a partner or cohabitant, without adding confusion or increasing the risk of making mistakes.
MY ROLE
UX / Service Designer. I led the research, defined the strategic focus, drove stakeholder alignment and was responsible for the final design direction.
TIMELINE
Jan 2021 - Dec 2021
CLIENT
Belastingdienst
Approach
My role was set up specifically to identify and improve high-friction services within the Belastingdienst. For this journey, we had a 12-week window to move from scattered signals to a validated direction. The starting assumption inside the organisation was that bereaved citizens were capable of self-managing these tasks. Research quickly showed that wasn't the problem.
What was discovered
Based on 20 recourses + 15 interviews
· Internal and external reports · 10 citizens and 5 colleagues
Delay with taxes was often caused, because bereaved citizens were unable to handle administrative tasks during this period because grief and intense emotions were still present.
COMMON PAINPOINTS
01 Administration
Survivors can't handle tasks within the expected timeframe from the Belastingdienst.
02 Guidance
Survivors don't know where to begin or lose track under emotional pressure.
03 Expectations
Survivors expect automatic handling.
• 80% expected Belastingdienst notifies them automatically.
Step-by-step proces
From research to decisions
The journey was split across multiple departments. No single team had a complete picture of what citizens actually experienced end to end. I brought policy, customer service, and design together early, not to align on solutions, but to map the full journey first. Without that shared view, any improvement would have optimised a fragment while leaving the real friction points untouched.
Step-by-step proces
01 / 03
Indexing behavioral patterns
Citizens didn't approach these tasks the same way. Some wanted to resolve everything quickly. Others couldn't start at all. not because the steps were unclear, but because any decision felt too risky. Mapping those patterns helped us focus on the moments where people were most likely to freeze or make avoidable mistakes.
Strategic focus
Rather than addressing all solutions, I mapped them against complexity vs citizen value. Everything else went to the backlog. That narrowed the scope and kept the team focused on where confusion caused the most damage.
Solution
Citizens received fragmented information by different subjects, spread across multiple letters, without a clear picture of what still needed to be done.
THE CHECKLIST FOR RELATIVES MADE IT POSSIBLE TO:
Filter
Quickly filter what tasks already been done and what is still outstanding.
Relation
Help understand dependencies between steps.
Reassurance
Reduce uncertainty and stress through explicit step-by-step descriptions.
Impact
80%
of citizens reported reduced stress and confusion in usability tests.
60%
didn't drop out or felt the need to contact support with the new solution.
90%
of the stakeholders gained a better understanding of citizen needs.
These numbers confirmed that focusing on the highest-friction moments was the right call. Reduced drop off and support contact signals a meaningful shift in confidence with surviving relative in a service where mistakes have real consequences.
Reflection
This project forced me to work outside what I was certain of. Aligning stakeholders across multiple systems, translating research into strategic focus, defending decisions that weren't about screens — that wasn't what I expected going in. If I did this again, I would manage expectations earlier. There were moments where ambiguity sat too long. People assumed design could change things it couldn't. Getting that on the table sooner would have made the collaboration sharper. The biggest takeaway: the question you're given at the start is rarely the one you should be answering. The value wasn't in the screens, it was in reframing the problem itself. That's something I carry into every project since.
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