Posted on February 17, 2003 - by deCadmus

Building Block

Back to the subject of the user experience…

I’ve had the extreme fortune to, once again, find myself playing my favorite role – practicing a mix of usability and information architecture, and being something of a customer experience gadfly. When the dotcom bubble burst I had to wonder if I’d get the opportunity to return this space at all. Instead, not only do I get to play, I get to coach a team of very smart people, as well.

In August I accepted a position at H&R Block, managing the web content services team. In September I started doodling tweaks to the site’s IA on notebooks and napkins. In October, we started whiteboarding. In November we presented a new design to management. And over the course of 45 days in December, we executed that design. That all-new version of the H&R Block web site went live January 10… synchronized with the new season’s product launch.

All in all, I’m awfully pleased with what we’ve built. Sure, there’s some bits I’d like to have done differently, if we’d had the time. There’s little things, still, that rub me the wrong way… but we can address those, and we are.

Building and launching the site was a galvanizing event for the new content team, who continue to throw themselves into new projects with all the energy of an upstart startup… just without the Aeron chairs.