Reducing "Double-login" Friction to Auto Import Bank and Tax documents
I redesigned a critical 'double-login' experience to project a significant boost in automated data imports for QuickBooks and TurboTax (Full Service) customers, successfully shifted the user's mental model from "Why am I logging in again?" to "I am granting access to my secure documents.
My Team
Product Manager, Content Designer, Product Designer(me!)
Stakeholders
QuickBooks Product Team, TurboTax Product team, Engineering
Tools
Figma, Amplitude, UserTesting, HeyMarvin
Project Timeline
6 weeks
Project Status
The design is delivered and hand off for development in 2025
Background
Due to strict financial regulations, banks use separate secure channels (OAuth, MFA) to transmit different types of data. While a user may authenticate once to sync digital transactions, a second, explicit authorization is required to access official PDF documents like monthly statements or tax forms.
Currently, this creates a "Double-login" friction point. Most users are either unaware that automated document importing is an option or become frustrated when asked to log in twice in a row. This results in users abandoning the secure flow and reverting to the tedious, manual process of downloading and uploading files.
The Challenge
Despite some customers asking for this “missing” capability ability to automate data imports, the technical and legal constraints means a “brute force” approach of the "Double-login" experience is not ready to be rolled out for customers without clear value proposition and clarity to address the second authentication. Today, customers are only able to manually document management, without getting a good "done-for-you" experience.
Problem Statements
QuickBooks Customer Statement
I am an Intuit QuickBooks customer.
I want to reconcile my monthly statements to ensure my books are accurate.
However, I have to manually download PDFs from my bank and upload them to QuickBooks every month.
Which makes me feel frustrated that the platform isn’t automating a repetitive task as promised.
TurboTax (Full Service) Customer Statement
I am an Intuit TurboTax customer.
I want to import my financial data quickly so I can finish my tax return.
However, I am asked to log in to my bank a second time just to share my tax forms, which feels redundant and suspicious.
Which makes me feel confused and hesitant to continue, leading me to abandon the digital sync and hunt for paper documents instead.”
TurboTax (Full Service) Expert Statement
I am a TurboTax Full Service Expert.
I want to verify my client’s tax documents efficiently to ensure a fast and accurate filing.
However, most clients don't realize they can automate this early, so I have to prompt and wait til customers to return and manually upload low-quality photos or incomplete PDFs.
Which makes me feel burdened by back-and-forth communication that slow down my ability to finish each filing.”
My Role
I spearheaded the design strategy from aligning product requirements to delivering A/B tested user insights to leadership:
Identified customer experience gaps in QuickBooks and TurboTax product teams, and defined customer problem statements in the product requirement document.
Delivered design audits, high-fidelity usability testing prototypes and research-backed design decks for my PM partner to get senior leadership buy-in, successfully getting sign-off for development resources.
My process
I followed a research-heavy, iterative approach to deconstruct the "why" behind user abandonment:
Audits & Benchmarking: Evaluated existing connection flows and researched how competitors (e.g., Mint, Personal Capital) navigated multi-channel authentication.
Generative Research: Interviewed 12 users to map their mental models, discovering that users viewed "the bank" as a single door rather than a series of secure data vaults.
Iterative Prototyping: Ran 3 rounds of usability testing on "Pre-Authentication" launch screens, testing various messaging strategies to set expectations before the first login.
Empower Content Strategy: Collaborated with Content Designers to refine the "why" behind the second login, turning a technical hurdle into a benefit-driven step.
Design Impact
The iterative design process proved key to decrease the friction in the “double-login“ experience, without challenging the existing tech constraints. We project a significant lift in auto-import adoption, driving higher conversion rates and reducing the manual document burden for millions of users, based on:
The final design successfully shifted the user's mental model from "Why am I logging in again?" to "I am granting access to my secure documents.
User testing showed users show almost 100% preferences toward new design