Intranet Transformation

H&R Block

H&R Block's intranet needed to be reimagined with an updated information architecture, enhanced user experience, and enhanced search capabilities that serves up content of massive scale to their user base more efficiently.

There was no existing process for solving these challenges. I determined what information would be required and tailored the UX tools at my disposal to acquire the pieces I would need to formulate a solution to this challenge.

Card Sorting Workshops

Due to the H&R Block intranet's large, cross-functional user base, it was necessary to hold multiple cardsorting workshops with stakeholders from key user bases to establish global patterns and role-specific priorities. Each group organized the cards in priority level from critical to irrelevant. A similar process was also used to determine which features and functionality to emphasize.

Creating a Dynamic Information Architecture

The findings from the card sorting workshops were that different content types could have a range of relevance from critical to irrelevant depending on which role the user was. To address this, we required users to identify what type of role they were in as a setting in their profile. The content structure would then shift to accommodate the selected role.

Below is a screenshot of a portion of a site map from just one of the user types we designed for.

Wireframing the Experience

The unique approach to the information architecture required that we not only wireframe the key pages for development, but also the variations in the navigation for each tailored role. Despite the system largely being accessed on the H&R Block work computers, we designed a complementary mobile experience to encourage more intranet usage on mobile devices.

The Design System

While the UX team focused on the wireframes, the UI team developed the Figma-based design system to confirm that the styles we were using aligned to the H&R Block branding and were easy for the development team to reference and utilize.

Applying the Design System

Once the wireframes and design system were approved, the two were beautifly merged by the design team to create a series of high-fidelity designs.

Summary

H&R Block presented my team with a unique challenge of which we met head on and tailored our approach to solve for the challenges that were unique to this project. The results were a new intranet that was not only much more effective and efficent for their associates to use, but also modernized the system's design.

Thank you for taking the time to review this case study. I would be happy to review this and additional work in more detail.

John Begley