Streamlining a Siloed Digital Experience at TTB
January 2024 - April 2024
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is a bureau under the U.S. Department of the Treasury that regulates and collects taxes on alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and ammunition.
From the beginning of this project, our research revealed that no matter who an industry member was and how much experience they had with TTB, they were still struggling to interact with TTB's digital experience. Users had to interact with five separate portals—each requiring its own login—corresponding to different regulatory tasks such as permitting, formulas, and labeling. These systems functioned as siloed products, reflecting the structure of internal regulations rather than the needs of the people using them.
While no one explicitly said, “It’s frustrating to log into five different systems,” it was clear that this fragmented setup likely added unnecessary complexity to the already difficult process of becoming TTB compliant. Neither the individual portals nor the broader digital ecosystem were designed to support a seamless, end-to-end customer journey with TTB. So we decided to create a prototype of what this might look like.
Why it mattered
The prototype we created served as a tangible translation of our findings — a demonstration of what a customer-centric, end-to-end digital experience could look like in practice. Oftentimes traditional research reports get filed away in the government and only get dusted off when another contractor comes in. We wanted our prototype to be a tool that could be used to guide broader conversations at TTB around what customer centricity actually looked like. Last I checked in, it’s still being referenced to this day.
The prototype allowed us to:
Show how real quotes and usability insights translated into design decisions
Prove that an integrated experience could still meet legal and regulatory requirements
Allow the agency to imagine new possibilities beyond the day to day weeds keeping it stuck
This prototype didn’t just communicate our findings — it embodied them. It showed how government services could be not only compliant, but human-centered.
My roles
UX Designer
UI Designer
what i made
Clickable Prototype
tools
Zoom
Miro
Figma
USWDS
TTb’s digital ecosystem
the 5 touchpoints
As mentioned, TTB’s digital ecosystem consists of five distinct digital touchpoints: PONL, FONL, COLAS, Pay.gov, and TTB.gov. Of these, PONL, FONL, COLAS, and Pay.gov are where users go to complete specific regulatory tasks, while TTB.gov serves as the central source of information needed to complete those tasks correctly.
Managing multiple logins and portals is already a challenge—but this burden is amplified by the fact that the guidance and reference materials necessary for successfully completing tasks are located outside the portals themselves. This disconnect forced users to jump back and forth between systems, often resulting in confusion, missed steps, and delays.
Interestingly, users frequently told us that critical information—such as processing times or guidance on the correct sequence of steps—didn’t exist and that they wished it did. In reality, this information was available, but it was buried on TTB.gov, disconnected from the workflows where it was needed most.
This reinforced a key insight: the five digital touchpoints weren’t just separate—they functioned independently, without awareness of the broader customer journey. As a result, users not only struggled with how to complete tasks within each portal, but also with understanding which portal to begin with. TTB’s industry members don’t think in terms of portals—they think in terms of tasks and outcomes. Their primary goal is to “do things right” and stay compliant, but the current system wasn’t designed to support that.
1 touchpoint per requirement
At a high level, these are the main requirements for industry members at TTB. The order, frequency, and quantity of each requirement vary widely depending on factors such as the industry, product type, and business size, to name a few. It’s up to industry members to navigate these many requirements and understand the capacity in which they apply to them. There’s no clear guide to walk industry members through what they need to do or how. This creates a lot of confusion and anxiety for industry members who just want to run their business and follow the rules. You often don’t know you’re doing anything wrong until you get a scary message from TTB. A unique aspect of TTB requirements is that their sequencing is really important, and specific each industry member. For example, someone may go through the process of trying to get their product label approved before getting their formula approved. You’re typcially supposed to get your formular approved before your label. This is to ensure that what’s in the bottle is actually what is being advertised. This may not be obvious to most people, but TTB assumes it is.
The current portals currently allow for users to complete each process, even if they’re not supposed to yet. This problem around sequencing is made even more likely as each portal does not communicate with the other. There’s no opportunity for course correction and it’s not until much later that they learn they were doing things wrong the whole time.
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Industry members usually need at least one permit in order to conduct business legally. The permitting process is possibly the most complex and difficult to understand out of all the TTB requirements. This is because depending on a multitude of factors like your industry, product, or business type your permit requirements could be totally different. A business's permit requirements are so specific to their unique situation that there really is no one size fits all guidance. However, all the burden for figuring what permits are needed falls on the shoulders of industry members. This is typically the first step you need to take in your TTB compliance journey.
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The purpose of submitting a formula to TTB is so that the agency can verify that you're meeting the requirements it has set for a given product type. Not all industry members need to submit a formula, and it can be tricky to know if you need to or not. One example of a product that would need a formula is any type of distilled spirit. TTB needs to ensure that the ABV and core ingredients are in line with their requirements for a given spirit. To further complicate matters, sometimes you'll need to send a sample of the product to a TTB lab so that it could be referenced with the formula you submitted. It's very difficult to figure out whether any of this even applies to you. This is often the second step in the process.
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A lot of work goes into getting the label we see on shelves approved by TTB. TTB is typically checking that all required information is on the label and that the language used is not incorrect or misleading in any way for consumers. They’re also comparing it to the formula you submitted in the previous step.
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While taxes is the touchpoint most industry members have in common when it comes to how they interact with TTB, there's still a great deal of variation in how much you need to pay in taxes and how often. It's often not until years later that you find out you've actually been paying the wrong amount and are facing numerous hefty fees.
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Industry members aren’t necessarily “doing“ their tasks on the main TTB website, but this is where information on how to do tasks correctly lives. However, the information is not organized in a way that made sense to industry members so much gets missed, and industry members don’t see it as a reliable, easy to reference tool in their TTB journey.
uinderstaning our users
Big Takeaways
Unclear Applicability
Industry members are often tasked with understanding which parts of TTB regulations apply to them and in what capacity. However, clear and easy-to-follow guidance from the TTB is lacking. As a result, many industry members turn to blogs or seek advice from more experienced peers. Those who can afford it hire consultants to navigate the complexities of TTB regulations. While these alternative methods help bridge the guidance gap, they disadvantage business owners who are unaware of these resources or cannot afford them, hindering their ability to effectively run their businesses.
After conducting remote interviews with 22 industry members, these were the universal challenges they were dealing with. We recruited participants with the help of a volunteer pool that TTB had set up before our work with them.
Convoluted language
Most of the content on TTB’s website is pulled directly from the regulation. It is not easy to understand; therefore, submissions to TTB are often submitted incorrectly and need substantial corrections. This is frustrating for industry members and TTB alike. If instructions were presented in a way that were easier to understand, it would alleviate challenges felt by industry members and reduce the load on TTB touchpoints like the call center and helpdesk.
lack of Transparency
When someone submits something for TTB approval, it is like sending it into a void. There’s no estimate for the expected turnaround, and industry members are left in the dark and unable to conduct business indefinitely. They often don’t hear back from TTB for sometimes months and they learn their submission has been rejected. They then need to start the process over.
user personas
A significant artifact we produced for TTB was a set of 4 personas. Each persona experiences the pain points detailed above, but the severity to which they're affected by them exists on a spectrum. Different factors like someone’s knowledge of the law, time available in their day, or tolerance for administrative burden can affect how much of an obstacle these pain points will be in a business becoming TTB compliant. Something that would be considered a major annoyance to one persona could be an insurmountable challenge for another. Understanding TTB industry members in this way allowed us to design an experience that met each of their individual needs, but also really make sure we were addressing the needs of the industry members who needed the most support and weren’t currently getting it.
For a more detailed view into how we made these personas see my other case study: Building Personas to Humanize TTB’s Industry Members
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They’re usually a small business owner with fewer brands/products that is juggling regulatory tasks on top of everything else. They are responsible for staying compliant, they take it seriously, but they are less confident and have less experience with TTB.
Works on the weekends or late at night; may have long dormant periods of interaction with TTB and can forget how they figured something out the last time.
Not likely to have much legal literacy
Low tolerance for administrative burden
Motivated by selling their product to consumers
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The business has a small team or one person (often part owner, often the spouse) who focuses on the logistics for the business, including, but not limited to compliance and regulation. They are more tenured and have put in a lot of time and effort creating personalized processes to streamline their regulatory and logistical tasks.
Want to use the documentation and efficiencies they’ve built for themselves so that they can make dealing with TTB easier.
Want to document their process so that they can streamline all regulatory work later.
Slightly more tolerance for administrative burden as they have more time to dedicate to TTB, but they’re still juggling other business logistics like payroll, distribution, etc.
Motivated to see their business succeed as there’s usually a personal connection or investment.
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Medium to large sized business with the resources to hire a dedicated team that focuses on logistics, compliance, and sometimes HR. These teams often have a small number of people focused on TTB specifically and access to cross functional teams (i.e. marketing, research + development, accounts payable, etc.).
Usually onboarded by their company on what to expect with TTB or they have previous experience with TTB.
Oftentimes inherited support materials and checklists from their predecessor on how to become and stay TTB compliant.
High tolerance for administrative burden because of the time they’re able to dedicate to TTB. Usually it’s their entire job.
Motivated by performing well in their current role at their company.
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The Third Party Professionals are consultants who help businesses of all sizes complete regulatory tasks and stay compliant with both federal and state agencies. These consultants can be individuals or teams.
Oftentimes have a legal background and were paralegals in the past.
Know the ins and outs of TTB very well as a result of how many times they’ve helped their clients through the process. Sometimes even know the specifics of TTB better than those working in the call center.
High tolerance for administrative burden given their typical legal background and time they can spend on TTB tasks, it is their full time job.
Motivated by providing their clients an easier TTB experience than if they were to do the process themselves. They want the client to have a smooth journey to becoming compliant and keep them in the know at all times.
The main differentiator between the personas was their tolerance for administrative burden. Administrative burden refers to the challenges individuals face when navigating bureaucratic systems — and it’s especially prevalent in government. For TTB industry members, common burdens include filling out forms, interpreting regulations, and understanding complex requirements.
The degree of administrative burden a persona would experience varies based on two key factors:
Legal or regulatory experience: Participants with legal backgrounds (e.g., former paralegals, consultants) were better equipped to interpret requirements and manage complexity.
Available time: Some participants had TTB compliance as their full-time role, while others had to fit it in among many competing responsibilities. The latter group often experienced more frustration and delays.
Regardless of background, TTB compliance requires time. The key difference was whether participants had the time, resources, and expertise to dedicate to it. Here’s how the personas fell on the spectrum of factors that would determine their experience.
Translating Research to design
designing for USer needs, not around TTB regulation
This mindset drove the design of our prototype. For years, the laws and regulations that shaped TTB’s policies also shaped the digital experience for industry members — and it was far from customer-centric. Our prototype set out to challenge that. In government, there’s often a belief that you have to choose between meeting legal requirements and designing for user needs. We wanted to prove that you don’t.
Our prototype demonstrated that it is possible to honor regulatory constraints and create a more intuitive, supportive experience for users. While many aspects of the TTB process can’t be changed easily — and some may take years to change— that doesn’t mean users should be stuck with a frustrating digital experience in the meantime.
Throughout this project, I asked myself: If the process itself can’t change, how can design make TTB more manageable — less overwhelming, time-consuming, and stressful for industry members?
The most natural way to begin answering that was to design from the perspective of the Multitasking Average Joe persona. Even after nine months working closely with TTB, I would still struggle to navigate TTB correctly. So it was easy to empathize with industry members as whole, but specifically those represented by this persona.
Focus on Multitasking Average Joe
After reviewing our personas in relation to the 3 factors that would make their TTB experience easier or more difficult, it’s clear that Multitasking Average Joes and Third Party Pros exist on opposite ends of the spectrum. We also saw that Multitasking Average Joes typically have the least amount of resources and carry the most TTB related burden. Because of this, we wanted whatever we designed to focus on helping Multitasking Average Joes first (going to call them MTAJs going forward). By designing for MTAJ who needs the most help first we could build the foundation for a solid experience everyone would benefit from. Once that foundation was built, we could begin incorporating efficiencies and tailoring the experience to the needs of the other personas on the other end of the spectrum and everywhere in between.
In practice this meant leveraging feedback from this group to provide experiences that prioritized
Providing relevant information at the point you need it
Not assuming something is obvious, it likely isn’t
Bake in ways to ensure someone stays on the right path towards compliance, and provide opportunities to course correct if necessary.
tYING User stories TO THE BIG TAKEAWAYS
Unclear Applicability
“As an industry member, I want to know what parts of TTB apply to me so that I can efficiently become and stay TTB compliant without needing to spend time and money searching for guidance elsewhere.“
Convoluted Language
“As an industry member, I want clear, step-by-step instructions on how to correctly comply with specific TTB regulations, so that I can avoid trial and error and ensure compliance from the start.”
lack of Transparency
“As an industry member, I want to receive regular updates and estimated turnaround times for my TTB submissions, so that I can manage my expectations and make informed business decisions.”
Prototype highlights
The prototype had two goals: illustrating our research findings and giving TTB a solid first iteration of a prototype to test after we left. Here are some concepts for improvement that the prototype highlighted.
improved visual heirarchies
A design challenge consistent across TTB’s digital products was that they were overly crowded, leaving users overwhelmed and unable to find what they needed. Users provided feedback that they often didn’t know where to look first and that their eyes would begin to glaze over the screen. During our early interviews with industry members, we discovered that much of the information they wanted from TTB’s website was actually already there, but it was just difficult to find. This was due to poor site navigation and how easy it was to overlook information, even while on the correct page, because of how much content was on each page without any consistent or thoughtful organization. Many site pages had competing visual elements and lacked a clear focal point. In redesigning these pages, we considered who was most likely to visit each page, anticipated their needs and questions, and designed the page’s visual hierarchy with that in mind.
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Relevant information when and where you need it
As mentioned when discussing visual hierarchy, much of the content users expressed wanting to see already existed. It was just very difficult to find, or in this case not available in the when and where they needed it. A theme in our research was that industry members wanted TTB to be more transparent about how long application processing times would be so that they could make important business decisions and manage their expectations. When we shared this with TTB, they were confused and directed us to the site page on the left. TTB thought that they were meeting industry members’ needs by providing this information on estimated processing times, but our research demonstrated that while this information did exist it did not live in a place where it was going to be the most useful to industry members.
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Emphasis on plain language
The image on the left shows the regulations as presented by TTB, while the image on the right displays a prototype screen that interprets and presents this regulatory content in a way that remains factually correct, unambiguous, and, most importantly, easy to understand. One recurring theme in our research was that industry members often expressed confusion about what they needed to do and how to do it. Although the necessary information was technically "in the regulation” according to TTB, this perspective fails to consider that most industry members lack the legal literacy to comprehend complex regulations or the time needed to decipher them. This prototype screen demonstrates how using plain language can significantly improve understanding therefore creating a better experience.
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Roadmap Generator
It’s typically much easier to approach a complex or daunting task after it’s been broken up into smaller and more manageable steps. That’s the concept I leaned on here. In order to figure out which parts of TTB apply to you and in what capacity, industry members had to sift through very dense pages with lots of regulatory information in language was that was difficult to understand to figure out which parts to even apply to them. The concept of designing something that allowed industry members to provide information to TTB incrementally and the agency being able to tell them what needed to be done was something TTB identified as a need, and that was confirmed in our research. By answering questions about yourself and your business, you’d be able to generate a personalized guide of what TTB requirements you would need to meet.
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Baked in cues and blocks to keep users on the correct path
A challenging aspect of TTB compliance is that it involves multiple steps that must be followed in a specific order, yet this sequence is not clearly communicated to industry members. The reason ordering matters is partly because of the way regulations are written and also due to how TTB organizes information on the backend. While reworking TTB’s backend was beyond the scope of our project, we focused on improving the interface of TTB tools to guide users through the correct compliance workflow, minimizing confusion and wasted effort.
For example, on the original screen of the formulas workflow on the left, there was no indication that users needed an approved permit to begin their formula application. While users could proceed without this prerequisite, their applications were inevitably rejected due to the missing permit, leading to frustration and the need to repeat the process. To mitigate this, we introduced a design solution using disabled buttons to act as blockers, preventing users from progressing without fulfilling essential steps. Each blocker was accompanied by clear explanations, allowing users to correct their course and avoid unnecessary rework. This design improvement aimed to streamline the process, reduce user frustration, and save time.
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reception of the prototype
The last time I checked in with TTB, they were still using our prototype to guide internal conversations around long-term product strategy and as a reference point for what strong usability looks like in practice. It’s incredibly rewarding to know that the work I contributed continues to have a lasting impact on the organization. Here’s some of the positive feedback we received:
“I really appreciate what you're showing, even if it's not technically correct. It helps us envision what's possible “
“You figure out the flow first, is this flow possible, how simple can we make it, when it comes time to argue about the words then you can bring in the users and make sure they understand it and if they can't…well then 90% of our testers don’t know what this means and we need to come up with another word.”
“You’ve provided such a tremendous service to TTB. We’re all very excited about the future, building from the vision you’ve helped to crystallize.”
