Building the portal
that never existed.
The Tax Institute has been the leading forum for Australia's tax community since 1943 — representing over 9,000 members across public practice, commerce, government and academia. Despite that scale, their members had no single place to manage their professional life with the Institute. Events, education, accreditation, collateral and membership details were scattered across a fragmented web experience that made everything harder than it needed to be.
I was brought in to design a fully consolidated member portal — a responsive, cloud-based web application that didn't exist before I started. The interface gives logged-in members a single destination for everything they're entitled to: upcoming and past events, course enrolments, CPD progress, membership status and more. Research, analytics and member feedback shaped every taxonomy decision throughout.
Understanding what
members actually needed.
With no existing portal to reference, the discovery phase was about establishing ground truth: what were members trying to do, what did they expect to find, and what had been failing them? Stakeholder interviews, customer support logs and member feedback sessions provided the evidence base — translating years of accumulated frustration into a clear, prioritised set of design requirements.
A MoSCoW prioritisation workshop with cross-functional stakeholders brought Marketing, Telesales, Customer Support and UX into the same room to agree on what the portal needed to do at launch, and critically, what it didn't. Affinity mapping then clustered the raw research into themes, surfacing the patterns that would drive every structural decision that followed.
Affinity mapping clustered raw interview and support data into core themes, like navigation confusion and membership tier clarity as the most critical problems to solve before any screen design began.
The MoSCoW workshop aligned five stakeholders on launch scope, separating what the portal must do on day one from what could be deferred, and formally retiring deprecated products.
One portal.
Many professionals.
The Tax Institute's membership spans a broad professional spectrum — from seasoned practitioners to early-career accountants pursuing higher education. Three core personas anchored the design and ensured the portal served the full range of member needs without over-complicating the experience for any one group.
David Nguyen
Tax Partner
Male · 48 · Public practice
History
Twenty years in tax law, recently made partner at a mid-tier firm. Long-standing TTI member who attends key annual events and relies on TTI for technical resources and CPD compliance.
Goals
- Quickly access and download event collateral
- Track CPD hours and membership renewal status
- Register for upcoming national events efficiently
Frustrations
- Can't find past event materials without digging
- Membership and event details are in different places
- Wastes time on calls to admin for basic information
Tech Skills
IntermediateSandra Kowalski
Tax Manager
Female · 38 · Commerce & industry
History
In-house tax manager at an ASX-listed company. Uses TTI primarily to stay current on legislative changes and to maintain her CTA designation through CPD and events.
Goals
- Stay across legislative updates relevant to her industry
- Manage her CTA designation and renewal timeline
- Register for targeted events without sifting through irrelevant content
Frustrations
- Portal feels like it's built for public practice, not in-house
- No consolidated view of what she's registered for
- Renewal reminders come too late and by email only
Tech Skills
SavvyPriya Sharma
Graduate Student
Female · 26 · Higher Education
History
Enrolled in the Graduate Diploma of Applied Tax Law through TTI Higher Education. Working full time as a junior accountant while studying part-time; time-poor and expects everything to be easily accessible online.
Goals
- Access course materials and results in one place
- Understand her pathway to CTA accreditation
- Find relevant events to build her network early
Frustrations
- Education portal and member portal feel entirely separate
- Unclear what benefits she's entitled to as a student member
- Navigation assumes you already know what you're looking for
Tech Skills
Savvy60+ screens.
Every member state mapped.
Over 60 screens were designed — covering the full member lifecycle from login and dashboard through to event registration, past event archives, education enrolments, CPD tracking and membership management. Every workflow and user journey was documented to ensure a coherent, consistent experience across the entire portal.
Accessibility across all devices was a core requirement from day one. The portal had to work for a senior partner on a desktop in a boardroom and a graduate student on a phone between shifts.
Screens were mapped out and prototyped informed by user research. They were tested and refined to optimise user flows and features.
Everything a member
needs. Nothing they don't.
The finished portal consolidated the full member experience into a single authenticated destination. For the first time, members could see everything in one place — without calling the office, searching the site, or logging into multiple systems.
Fully responsive and accessible on all devices.
A portal worth
the membership.
A fresh, responsive member portal that consolidated the entire Tax Institute experience for 9,000+ members — built from zero, designed around how tax professionals actually work.
