Redesigning from scratch
Intranet Redesign
Problem
Turn an unused, outdated intranet into a central place for finding team resources, searching for staff, and learning about what's going on at the company
Challenges
- Because the current intranet is difficult to use and most teams don't think it's useful, its content is old and untrusted.
- Staff have little time or motivation to maintain content.
- Users are spread across 26 teams around the world, and each team has its own needs.
Strategy
- Analyze analytics to determine how intranet is currently used
- Send out all-staff survey to confirm analytics findings and gather painpoints
- Meet with teams that have the most active, popular, or unique pages to discuss content and needs
- Based on user research, develop wireframes and meet with teams again to validate site structure
- For each team, identify a liaison who will act as the team's representative during the design and content migration process
- Using a clickable prototype built with mockups, meet with each team liaison to conduct user testing and share designs
- Update designs based on testing and team feedback
- Once key features of the intranet are built, meet with liaisons again for more user testing and feature refinement
- After launch, continue to gather feedback and iterate, iterate, iterate
Key Lessons from User Research
Bookmarks
Staff love the 'Quick Links' section, but the pre-chosen links are not relevant to all users.
Solution: add a bookmarks section that allows users to have a personalized 'Quick Links' section on their homepage.
Flagging Out-of-Date Content
The intranet is littered with old resources and former staff, and teams don't have the time to keep track of what needs updating.
Solution: allow users to flag content as out of date, which will alert teams to update their content.
Consistent Navigation
The current intranet allows teams to determine their own navigation for their team sections. This means each team section is different, making it a challenge to find content.
Solution: create a consistent navigation for team sections that is broad enough to accommodate each team's special needs.
Wireframes
Key Lessons from User Testing
Highlight Popular Features
Staff primarily use the intranet to find people and resources, but the searches for this content are not prominent. Also, bookmarks are a hit and need to be highlighted.
Solution: on homepage, move searches and bookmarks to the top of the page.
Neglected Staff Profiles
Staff want to find out who works on what and find each other's contact information. But staff often forget to fill out or update their profiles.
Solution: add a 'My Staff Profile' button to the homepage to encourage people to review what's being shared about them on the intranet.
Email vs. the Intranet
Most communication about team news occurs through email. Teams aren't confident users would use the intranet to post or find this information.
Solution: whenever a team update is posted on the intranet, allow users to send an email to teams with the updated content and link (future feature not reflected in designs).
Designs
Next Steps
Culture Change and Gaining Trust
How do we convince staff that the intranet is a useful information-sharing tool with reliable information and wean them off the convenience (but disorganization) of email?
Content Ownership
How do we convince teams to maintain their content and realize the benefits of doing so? How can we improve the design to provide delight and pride in the content?