A self-directed redesign of Indonesia's national tax platform re-sorting an entire information architecture around what a taxpayer is trying to do.
A self-initiated concept, not commissioned work. Coretax was never deployed or user-tested by Chapter20, every figure on this page is a projection reasoned from the diagnosis, not a measured result.
Indonesia is entering a new era of digital taxation, with millions already registered. Compliance keeps growing, but the digital experience hasn't kept pace. When the experience feels unclear, behavior doesn't follow. Three problems sit at the root.
Every item in the top nav is named after a DJP product. Users don’t think in product names, they think in tasks: “I need to report,” “I need to pay.” Before doing anything, they must first learn the system’s internal language.
Individual taxpayers, SME owners, corporate finance teams, and tax consultants have entirely different mental models, priorities, and literacy levels. The platform treats them identically: no adaptation, no prioritization, no context.
Above the fold is campaign banners and government notifications, not the user’s status, deadlines, or next action. The platform offloads the burden of remembering obligations onto the user.
Reasoned consequences of the diagnosed problems: projected, not measured outcomes of this redesign.
Users abandon mid-filing because compliance tools don’t help them finish: lost data, missed follow-ups, re-submissions. Manual work fills the gap for every confused user who can’t find their way through.
When basic filing takes too long, users blame the system, then call for help. Every confusing screen becomes a support ticket downstream.
Filing time is a direct proxy for platform clarity. Delay today leads to distrust tomorrow, and users leave.
Navigation reorganized by user goal instead of organizational structure. from 8 menus down to 4 (projected restructuring, not a measured result).
Shifts Coretax from a passive reporting interface into an active guidance system.
Rather than staying passive, the platform actively guides, motivates, reassures, educates, and reinforces good behavior, through reminders before deadlines, civic-impact messaging that connects taxes paid to public services received, and recognition for consistent on-time filing.
Four proposed features, ranked by priority.
Answers plain-language tax questions directly, instead of linking to a FAQ.
Checks a draft filing in real time, flags errors before submission, and explains the fix.
Estimates total tax owed and optimal installments from income data, shifting risk from year-end reconciliation to proactive planning.
Surfaces only the obligations relevant to each user’s actual profile, instead of broadcasting the same reminder to everyone.
reduction in support dependency with conversational AI
higher filing completion with smart validator + nudges
of submission errors prevented before filing
access to recommended actions, without manual navigation
AI-assisted workflows compressed weeks of exploration into days, without losing the strategic thinking behind every decision.
We started by mapping where the platform’s logic diverged from the user’s, breaking the experience down into the three structural problems before touching a single screen.
AI-assisted workflows let us explore navigation models, dashboard hierarchies, and component structures in parallel, testing layout reasoning at speed.
Dashboard screens and final UI direction emerged through rounds of judgment: the AI generated options, the strategy decided which survived.
Coretax's biggest problems weren't visual, they were structural.
The hardest work wasn't styling a dashboard, it was re-sorting an entire information architecture around what a taxpayer is trying to do, not around how the tax office is organized internally. AI compressed the production time. The diagnosis still had to come from us.
What if a new mom stopped guessing and started knowing? — Prototype