H&R BLOCK
Built an plan finder that simplified tax choices for faster decisions
Web, Mobile Web
2022
Challenge
H&R Block wanted to increase conversion by reducing drop-off during plan selection. They wanted to help users find the right fit faster.
Goal
Streamline the plan selection journey to build trust, reduce confusion, and help users confidently complete checkout.
Discovery
Stakeholder Interviews: Conducted 14 stakeholder Interviews across HRB marketing, product, taxes team to understand business goals and align on success metrics.
Qualitative Interviews: Identified pain points in navigation and content. Insights helped prioritize features and information to match how customers search for tax solutions.
Competitive Audit: Analyzed competitor tools to understand best practices and gaps. Designed low-fidelity wireframes to text early ideas, then iterated into a high-fidelity interactive prototype for usability testing.
“ I'm sure people want to know the prices first thing, at least for me that's the first thing I look for when I'm buying anything. ”
Kenneth
24
Workshops
Refined Business Goals and User Needs from earlier research, then created "How Might We" statements to spark ideation and ensure alignment with strategic objectives.
Together with key stakeholders, we decided to focus on building a Transactional Shopping experience, helping users feel confident in their choice by being clear, human, and transparent.
Closed the workshop with Crazy 8s sketching, rapidly generating ideas and evaluating which concepts best addressed both business and user goals.
Themes
To help users choose the right plan, we established core experience pillars: Transparent, Simple, and Personalized. These pillars shaped the content layout and strategy, ensuring the tool supported confident, informed decisions
Design Execution
We developed and tested 3 distinct concepts to validate which approach best empowered users to choose a plan confidently.
Shopping: A filter-based experience that mimics e-commerce behavior, allowing users to browse and compare plans
Guided: An assistant-like flow where users input their needs and receive a recommended plan
Priorities: A minimal approach showing all plans equally, giving users full control to choose based on preferences
The shopping concept struct the right balance since it gave users autonomy to browse while offering just enough structure and support to avoid confusion.
Out of the testing, users gave:
86%
Ease of use
~85%
Trustworthiness
~60%
Tool is most helpful source
100%
Would use the tool
Collaborative Refinement
Collaborative Design Process: After exploration, we moved into design execution. We worked side-by-side with H&R Block team in Figma. Over the course of a month, we evolved the designs in real time, refining layout, messaging, and visual hierarchy based on shared goals.
Usability Testing: As we continued to iterate, we added an additional third round of user testing to ensure changes made were inline with UX and business goals, and to gather final feedback to weave into final designs.
Concept Evaluation: Assessed clarity and usability of the selected design direction. Ensuring the flow, content and UX is clear and easily useable for consumers.
Tool Functionality: Validated how well users could find the right plan using the new design.
Messaging & Copy: Tested variations in tone and language to increase clarity and confidence.
Final Experience
A redesigned homepage that helps users easily compare and choose the right tax plan for their needs. By surfacing clear, actionable details, we reduced confusion and helped users make confident decisions faster.
Key design features included:
Plan Finder Tool for guided recommendations
Transparent Pricing for clarity and trust
Plan Comparison for easy evaluation across options
Plan Finder Tool
We developed a decision logic matrix to account for all possible combination of user selections. This ensured each plan recommendation aligned with user's tax situation while also meeting business goals. The result was a tool that feels both smart and supportive.
Transparent Pricing
We made sure to be transparent in pricing and details of each plans (filing on their own versus with a pro) in bullet points so user would understand what they were getting into before moving ahead to the next step.
Plan Comparison
We've laid out all the available plans in one view. We made sure users could easily understand the differences at a glance, minimizing confusion and decision paralysis.
Final thoughts
This project focused on redesigning the homepage to simplify how users explore tax plans and make decisions with confidence. If given more time, I would have explored how these changes impacted key metrics like engagement and conversion. Also, extending the redesign across the full site could further strengthen clarity and trust throughout the experience.
