Grubhub for Drivers: Form 1099
Discovery
Because GH drivers are independent contractors, we need to provide them with a 1099 form every year for tax purposes. Historically, the way we’ve done that is via direct mail. But as the driver pool continues to grow each year, so does the cost of mailing these forms. For the 2021 tax season we expect to send 400k forms. Between decreasing contacts to Driver care ($1 per contact), queries with the internal tax team ($1 per ticket), and direct mail costs ($0.95), we’re saving an estimated $278k by being able to deliver these forms in a digital format. In addition to being a cost-saving measure for Grubhub, it’s a quality of life improvement for drivers who want the option of accessing their tax forms electronically.
Gaps in existing experience
There were a few pain points in the existing tax experience we were looking to address for the redesign—
A driver needs to make at least $600/yr to receive a tax form. In the previous experience we weren’t making this requirement clear enough. As a result, we received numerous contacts to Driver Care from drivers who hadn’t met the threshold asking us where their form was.
We weren’t displaying annual earnings in the app, only weekly earnings.
There was a high technical load associated with housing tax forms directly within the app, which resulted in overloaded servers around tax time.
Existing tax experience
Methodology
If anything this project was an exercise in change management for the user; taking very broad business requirements, reframing them in terms of the driver mindset, and translating them into tangible design. It’s not just that we need to tell a driver “you are eligible to receive a tax form.” Because the reality is that it depends— a lot of this information is time/event sensitive, and so what we display to the driver in this experience needs to be as dynamic as that reality. So that whether a driver is visiting this space on a regular basis or just once, we would always be displaying the most accurate, most relevant status to them at that time and the system would be responding to what they’ve done.
Content strategy and process flow
UI exploration
Once the general IA of the screen was established, I moved into high fidelity explorations of how this information might be presented. Main considerations at this stage are— how do we emphasize/de-emphasize the things we decided are most/least important at each stage of the tax process? How do we clarify expectations around requirements for a tax form so that a driver knows what to expect? And how does this experience visually adapt to changes/events in the calendar year?
Solution & Outcomes
The final solution is released to drivers in phases—
1. Phase 1, May 1-Dec 31 of a calendar year, gives drivers transparency around earnings and ‘on-track’ tax form eligibility
2. Phase 2, Jan 1-late Jan, indicates final earnings and tax form eligibility for the previous calendar year.
3. Phase 3, Late Jan-April 30, makes the tax form available in the app.
Backend calendar logic that dictates releases
Segmentation was added to the experience to allow drivers to view data and download tax forms from previous years, in the event they are audited or just need it for their personal records.