H&R Block's Dynamic Document Checklist
H&R Block, a prominent tax preparation company, is committed to instilling confidence in individuals during the tax filing process. Digital Drop-off is a tax preparation product that empowers clients to digitally submit tax information and documents to their designated tax professional.
Overview
Project Summary
The document upload experience was a black box, with no help, guidelines, or requirements. Clients were unsure what documents they needed to provide and what tasks were complete vs. incomplete. To tackle this challenge an automated, customizable, and dynamic tax document checklist was designed. This innovative solution offers clients precise guidance and ensures tax professionals receive accurate submissions, optimizing and simplifying the tax preparation experience for both clients and tax pros.
Team
Lead Product Manager, Lead Software Engineer, Content Designer, Product Designer (Me)
My Role
Design Lead
Duration
November 2023 - January 2024
Success Metric
Increased quality submissions and faster tax return completion
Goals
User
A guided document upload process leading to faster tax return completion.
Business
Enhance the detail and accuracy of intake submissions to expedite the tax preparation process.
Problem
A critical need for document guidance and requirements
The absence of guidance and requirements for document uploads results in incomplete or inaccurate submissions, causing delays and dissatisfaction for both clients and tax professionals.
Impact
1.6% increase
in our virtual client’s intent to return
26% increase
in document uploads from tax season 2022 to tax season 2023
Context
The original design was failing our clients and tax pros
The original document upload experience lacked guidance, help, and requirements. This led to 90% of clients submitting zero documents to their tax professional. Due to the low quality of client submissions, tax pros were left to hound clients for missing documents, delaying the start of their tax return.
Understanding the technicalities of building a more personalized document experience
This project focused on the document upload screen within the Digital Drop Off virtual tax flow. The team uncovered that utilizing answers from a series of personal questions asked earlier in the flow, we could generate a customized list of documents the user would need to upload to their tax pro.
User Flow & Scope
DESIGN PROCESS
Discovery
We started with a thorough market analysis to uncover how other companies were approaching this problem
Prior to the design phase, a thorough market analysis was conducted to evaluate document checklist implementations by other tax and checklist softwares. This involved identifying the strengths and weaknesses of other experiences from Turbotax, TaxCaddy, Keeper Tax, and Todist:
Key Takeaways
Clearly indicate documents needed and remaining tasks
Dynamically track task completion
Give users flexibility and customization throughout the process
Allow for multiple uploads in a given category (mult. jobs, married filers)
DESIGN PROCESS
Exploration
Rapid ideation helped communicate new ideas to my product trio
During the design phase, my focus was on creating a personalized and dynamic user experience. Gathering user data from intake forms, the team aimed to craft a customized, suggested document list, while also making the process intuitive and comprehensive. Utilizing prebuilt components from our design system, I was able to rapidly design mockups and create prototypes to illustrate three different concepts to my team.
Design 1
Pro’s:
Follows the traditional checklist look and feel clients are used to
Dynamically checks off completed documents
Dynamically sorts documents
Con’s:
Can’t add documents directly to a section
Inconsistent look and feel from the enterprise
Design 2
Pro’s:
Simple categories
Consistent UI with the other applications
Dynamic sorting
Con’s:
Editing features are hidden
Progress is not as clearly defined
Design 3
Pro’s:
Visually tracks progress against completed items
Multiple entries to upload documents
Easily edit and update categories
Con’s:
Progress could be misinterpreted
DESIGN PROCESS
The Roadblock
While sharing our design proposals, considerable constraints were uncovered
Collaborating with related product and development teams, constraints in back-end logic, front-end ownership, development resources, and timelines were identified. This meant the team would need to go back to the drawing board to find a new solution that would solve our problem with half the resources and freedom we originally planned on.
Obsticals
DESIGN PROCESS
The Pivot
Finding creative solutions on highly constrained projects
After uncovering the constraints, I pulled the trio team and related partners together. I lead the group through a live collaboration session defining the areas we could control, and collectedly brainstormed possible new solutions. As a result, the team opted for a simplified design approach to align with the short time frame and resources available. The MVP solution focused on quick improvements we could make such as content, upload requirements, and additional help resources.
“I had one of the best collaboration meetings in all my time at Block thanks to Madison. We had product, design, and development in a call discussing how to overcome some technical constraints with the new experience. In the call, she pulled up the figma and built a design that took into account user needs and technical limitations and everyone was able to understand and sign off in a 30 minute call. Best day ever.”
- Development Manager
Improvements
DESIGN PROCESS
User Testing
Validation through feedback and usability testing
Before implementation, the proposed solution underwent moderated usability testing, validating its design and content modifications. The results confirmed users' ability to find document help, understand the one-document requirement, and navigate the page effectively.
FINAL PRODUCT
A Guided Document Experience
FINAL PRODUCT
Contextual Help
Content updates were made to the heading and subheading, to notify users of the one document requirement and give additional guidance.
A link to additional document help on the page organized by income and deduction documents, was added to provide help in the most common way clients understand document categories.
FINAL PRODUCT
Visibility into previous uploads
Whether clients upload documents in a previous session or in their client portal, all documents will be visible to the user so they can keep track of all their documents and tasks.
FINAL PRODUCT
Document Requirement
One income document is required for users to proceed forward. Ensuring a higher quality submission and the ability for tax pros to start and complete client returns faster.
Results
User and Tax Pro Impact
26% increase in documents submitted from last tax season
1.6% increase in virtually assisted clients’ intent to return
100% document upload completion
Take Aways
The Power of Collaborative Brainstorming:
A pivotal moment in the project involved bringing together all business partners for a live collaboration call. This collective brainstorming session generated solutions that aligned both user and business goals. The collaboration not only clarified the final solution but also fostered a unified understanding of how development would bring it to fruition.
Strategic Decision-Making in Constrained Environments:
Working within tight timelines and confined environments requires a strategic evaluation of trade-offs. During this project the team had to prioritize the most important features and discern what items to push forward and what items to pause on.
Advocating for Ideas:
Although limited resources prevented the immediate implementation of more elaborate designs, the vision these designs provided for future development has been acknowledged and incorporated into the backlog. This taught me the long-term impact of pushing for creative solutions.