Project Details
Requirement
A natural gas provider who extensively deals with natural gas services for residences has a target objective to remodel and digitally transform their existing intranet website through which all their employees and associates of the firm can connect, organise and track their official data such as- working hours, calendars, events, HR issues and more. The traditional website was very limited in ease of use and lacked the best practices of versatile usability. Requirement was to re-strategise, redesign and rebuild the entire digital presence from a complete usability point of view to match with the upmarket trends and best practices of digital platforms.
Business Goal
The company aims to mutate the traditional way of doing things to a much refined digital form, the first basic version of the company’s digital presence proved to be advantageous and they were certain to enhance their old website with more newer modules, functions and better information architecture. With the introduction of new design layouts and usability solutions, the company wants to bring forward a contemporary digital presence for its users for better collaboration, organisation, and analysis of data within the company.
Exploration
Users of the Product
All the employees in the company and employees across various departments/modules constitute the major user slab for the Intranet website. For Example, the announcement department employees are responsible for all the events organised in the company, likewise the human resources department is responsible for all the internal management of employees and so on. Therefore, there is a need for a number of blueprints in order to design each module with its own set of unique functions and target users.
Recalibrating the Users
With multiple modules and its associated employees it is understood that the range of users and their corresponding functionalities are very widespread, so the digital presence will aim to bring together all its employees through the intranet which acts as a central functional networking point for all the activities of the company. The main focus is on the employees of the company who use the website as a digital platform on a daily basis for their work.
Research
The company was very proactive towards major design changes and was willing to put in place the appropriate yet the best usability solutions. For a head start, a set of questionnaires were filled in by the users to help us understand the trouble zones. Moreover, the Field Study approach opened gates to interact with the users directly, and it was the best possible approach we could adapt to as it gave us an opportunity to observe the users in real time and contemplate the pain points with the users candidly. With the ongoing research, what came to light was- many pain points were around the most basic functions such as- the website handicapped the users to spontaneously find crucial or required details, respond to events or even share information at ease, and other similar tasks. On whole, It was inferred that the important target areas to address were the usability design solutions, information architecture and the overall aesthetics of the site.
Design Process
Through strategic thinking, observation, real time interactions and questionnaires, quite an amount of user related data were captured, which helped the project at its initial point of design launch. In progression, followed the rough sketches of the concept, it gave an idea of how the bits and pieces of data needed to be linked and reflected in the information architecture of the website. Therefore, designing the home page originally was of paramount importance as it laid a logical infrastructure to connect all the modules collectively. With all the available inputs and beyond the initial cycles of retracing the efficiency of the design with the integration of user centric design practices, the wireframes were built and the design solution started to take shape to delight our users. Now, the previously missed out common functions such as- edit, update, maintain, share, respond were made available and intuitive to the users providing them with a better degree of freedom to manage their needs and show their willingness of social involvement within their professional community.
Solution
My Role
I was responsible for the usability solution put in place for the company's effective internal digital presence. I took responsibility for strategically analysing, interpreting and resolving the fieldwork data that was obtained during the research phase. I progressed on creating initial solution sketches, wireframes, and prototypes post the introductory sign offs from the stakeholders. I got to experiment, learn and implement a few great notable ideas that were apropos to the usability context. Also, extended my interest towards contributing to the enhancements in the company’s branding and style guidelines.
Result
Good quality design frameworks and solutions make stakeholders happy, they said “the design experience and design solution turned out to be a lot better than what they initially anticipated”. Was an excellent opportunity to work with another new domain and perceive new solution strategies. The newfangled design product turned out to be a beneficial digital transformation solution for all its users as it reinstated them with a sense of authority and control over their daily official responsibilites.