The Washington Post, a leader in the media industry, seeks to revamp its employee intranet to meet the demands of the digital age and enhance organizational efficiency. As the company continues to innovate, there's a pressing need to modernize internal communication channels and streamline workflow processes. The current intranet lacks the necessary functionality and user experience, hindering employee productivity. To address this challenge, our team will embark on a comprehensive discovery process to understand user needs and preferences.
In approaching the redesign of this tool, our aim was to enhance usability and efficiency for employees. Through extensive user research, including interviews and card sorting, we identified key pain points and user needs. Our design prioritized clarity, consistency, and simplicity, ensuring that information was logically structured and easy to navigate. Seamless integration with other tools were implemented to tailor the experience to individual user preferences and workflow requirements. Iterative feedback loops with users throughout the design process ensured that the final product exceeded expectations, fostering greater collaboration, productivity, and satisfaction across the organization.
In approaching the redesign of this tool, our aim was to enhance usability and efficiency for employees. Through extensive user research, including interviews and card sorting, we identified key pain points and user needs. Our design prioritized clarity, consistency, and simplicity, ensuring that information was logically structured and easy to navigate. Seamless integration with other tools were implemented to tailor the experience to individual user preferences and workflow requirements. Iterative feedback loops with users throughout the design process ensured that the final product exceeded expectations, fostering greater collaboration, productivity, and satisfaction across the organization.
During this process, we focused on asking questions that would help us understand areas of opportunity to focus on. For our user interviews, I began with the following topics to better understand their workflow;
• User found the navigation menu a bit confusing to use where some items wouldn't be where they expect it to be.
• When locating resources, it was difficult for people to find the most updated documents.
• Users didn't have the option to search, they had to navigate the website using the nav menu.
• The tool was primarily used to search for other colleagues and their location in the office
• HR wanted a way to build a more consistent communication line with its employees. They found that its difficult to post new information within the current website.
Stakeholder discussions allowed the team to identity where the MVP efforts should be focused on for the redesigned solution.
• Home page
• Hero Banner
• OKTA Apps Quick Links
• Featured Events
• Featured "In the News"
• Search Page and Indexing
• Informational Page
• Resources Download link
• Related Resources
With the research conducted and analyzed, our sitemap was organized so users could easily locate resource online. Below is a snapshot of the sitemap generated for mapping resources in our new design.
We wanted to have consistent layouts throughout the website. in order to meet the goal requirements of the new tool, we needed to confirm that the proposed layout templates met those business requirements (event registration, social integration, workday integration, etc).
Componentizing these the following elements allows us to create a consistent experience for users and allowed developers to efficiently build our MVP.
• Content Cards
• Side Panel Navigation
• Hero Banner
• Page Header
• Global Navigation
Meeting with various stakeholders, we embarked on the voice and tone workshop, a journey to define the very essence of the brand's communication. Through lively discussions and engaging exercises, we delved into the personality and style that would resonate with our audience. Like characters in a story, each participant contributed to crafting the narrative of our brand's voice, ensuring that every message would captivate and connect with our audience, weaving a cohesive and compelling tale of who we are and what we stand for.