Selected work

Designing the UK's first mobile-native payroll

Translating HMRC compliance into a clear mobile flow that small business owners could complete with confidence.

Client: Tide
Role: UX Writer
Year: 2024–present

Payroll, wherever work happens

The problem

Small business owners were chained to desktop software. Running payroll meant navigating complex HMRC portals that weren’t built for mobile screens, leading to anxiety and avoidable errors.

The goal

We needed a simple but robust service that guided users through every step, from registering with HMRC to paying their first employees. It also had to keep users motivated through long waits and offline tasks.

Tide Payroll marketing copy — We pivoted the value proposition from compliance to ease.

Register as an employer overview screen — We set expectations about the HMRC wait before users started.

Owning the end-to-end content strategy

I translated complex HMRC compliance rules into a linear, mobile-friendly flow, covering the moments before, during, and after each payroll run.

Tide Payroll home screen — The payroll home screen for existing users.

A Tide Payroll bottom-sheet explainer — One of the in-context explainers used throughout.

Using the language our users use

Analytics showed users dropping out on pages that mirrored HMRC language. In interviews, we discovered the terminology was accurate but unfamiliar.

Understand real terminologyI spoke with users to understand how they interpreted both our copy and the language they had been given by HMRC.
Translate without losing accuracyWe aligned language with users’ mental models while preserving the legal and operational meaning.

Keeping people engaged over weeks

Long HMRC security waits were unavoidable. The experience had to make the wait feel intentional, keep users oriented, and make the next action obvious.

Set expectations upfrontI was transparent about how long the process would take while reassuring users that we would stay with them at every step.
Give detailed help where neededI wrote guidance that could be accessed on the same page, helping people reorient after days or weeks away.
Prepare before startingBy requesting documents upfront, we helped users complete each active part of the flow in one sitting.

A guided registration step in Tide Payroll — Clear guidance helped people return with confidence.

The add a new director screen in Tide Payroll — Preparation became part of the user experience.

The result

We helped thousands of business owners run payroll from wherever they like, for the first time.

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