Contents - Connect-World

National Development
Tax Office tip: to try technology; talk to taxpayers
by Bill Gibson, Chief Information Officer, Australian Taxation Office
Australias Tax Office has been working to find ways to make it easier and cheaper for
people to comply with their tax obligations. The Tax Offices Listening to the community
program and its state-of-the-art usability lab called the Simulation Centre allows
designers and users of the tax system to share experiences. This has resulted in a series
of on-line systems that provide businesses and tax agents with new and enhanced functions,
with higher quality, more timely, information and processing.
Bill Gibson is the Australian Taxation Offices first Chief Information Officer. Mr Gibson has worked in
both the public and private sector, including the Health Insurance Commission where Mr Gibson was
involved in the Medibank and Medicare Private programmes.
Immediately before joining the Tax Office, Mr Gibson worked with QANTAS in a variety of IT roles
including systems development, infrastructure and operations. In his current position, Mr Gibson is
responsible for ensuring that the Tax Offices IT systems and processes support day-to-day business as
well as high-quality service to the community. Over the next few years Mr Gibson will be focusing on
supporting specific initiatives designed to make the Australian revenue system easier, cheaper and more
personalised for both staff and the taxpaying community. Many of these initiatives include the further
development of the offices online environment to provide people with free, secure and convenient electronic
products and services.
In recent years, the Tax Office has
adopted a number of innovations,
which have led to real improvements
in the way taxpayers experience the
revenue system.
In March 2002, the Commissioner of
Taxation announced the Listening to
the Community programme. This
involved the Tax Office working with
the general community, small business,
industry and tax agents to
develop ideas to make it easier and
cheaper for people to comply with
their tax obligations.
In addition to community involvement,
the Tax Office is also committed
to the concept of user-centred
design (or co-design) to conceive,
develop and test products and
services.
This approach is applied at all stages
of developmentconcept, design,
building and testingand involves
the user in working out what should
be delivered, how it should look and
function and testing the usefulness
and usability of the final product.
Listening to the community has
evolved into the Tax Office’s threephase
Change Programme, which
takes the information the Tax Office
has heard to plan, design and implement
improvements for taxpayers
and their representatives.
When determining taxpayers’ needs
and how to fulfil them, the Tax Office
uses a range of user-centred design
and testing techniques including:
ˆ Focus groups: Small discussion
groups, which involve questioning
and getting responses from a group
of users. Focus groups are effective
for concept and product testing,
learning how people may use a product
and exploring problems or complaints
relating to a specific product.
ˆ Prototyping: This involves developing
examples of a product, system
or trial model using paper or screenbased
mock-ups. Prototyping begins
once requirements have been identified.
These prototypes are then evaluated
by users, after which further
prototypes are built based on their
comments.
ˆ Walkthroughs: Participants are
asked to imagine a process, product
or system and discuss what they
would do or expect to happen at each
step. This technique is generally used
to look at current operations to identify
problems or inefficiencies.
ˆ Usability evaluation: This involves
the evaluation of a product by users
who are observed while interacting
with the product. This can extend as
far as detailed evaluation of participants’
facial expressions, reactions
and behaviour. This technique can be
applied at any stage of development
and can lead to suggestions for
improved design.
ˆ User testing and observation: The
Tax Office has a state-of-the-art
usability lab called the Simulation
Centre, which allows designers and
users of the tax system to share experiences.
The Simulation Centre
includes two simulation rooms, an
observation room, a discussion room
and a design space. The Simulation
Centre’s set-up enables designers to
observe users interacting with products
with minimal intrusion.
ˆ User interviews: This involves a
one-on-one interview with a client to
evaluate a product, process or system
from the early stages of a project and
continuing to the early product
design. This approach is commonly
used to evaluate a proposed design.
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