irs.gov upgrades

photo via oprah.com

The IRS website is getting another makeover within the next few weeks.  It looks like many of the changes will be cosmetic/visual.  Hopefully the “before” isn’t better than the “after.”

I don’t mean to say that the changes will be entirely superficial.  Sometimes it makes sense to rearrange content that was already there before so visitors can navigate to what they want more quickly.  Anything that enhances access to tax relief information is fine by me.

For example, we will have access to subscription services from the home page.  I get IRS news and updates sent direcly to my email inbox, but I can’t remember how I set that up because it was years ago.  So having the ability to add or modify subscriptions right from the home page seems like a positive change.

Some changes to irs.gov are part of an effort to make the website pages match up better and appear more consistent.  IRS also promises enhanced search capabilities — a very important upgrade from the point of view of a tax attorney, and for a website with such extensive content.

The most interesting change will involve transitioning to an “intent-driven navigation structure.”  I think this means that irs.gov will attempt to understand what you want to see before you ask to see it based on historical nagivation information that it “learns” as you surf.  We’ll see how this works.  It reminds me of Genius Mixes and Smart Playlists in iTunes.  I haven’t been too impressed with technology that predicts what I like.