Support Cost Savings
$2m annually
Increased Traffic
+35%
Search use decreased
-40%
Role
Timeline
3-6 months
Brief
The HUB is a highly used resource amongst associates and managers alike but was due for some design love. We were asked by leadership to partner with HR and our internal comms teams to do generative research to identify the biggest pain points and come up with designs to help remediate those issues across multiple phases with the goals of:
Reducing calls to support
Increasing findability and user confidence
Making search match best-in-class web experiences
Why so many rage clicks?!
1. Search either didn't work or when it did it wasn't as expected
2. Multiple logins between various areas of the site caused a lot of friction and frustration for users
3. Due to poor search function users are forced to navigate the application and often feel "overwhelmed" or "confused"
4. Users noted that the dashboard was “cluttered”, “too much”, and “overwhelming”
5. Users expected The Hub’s dashboard to show information based on their location and business unit
Where do we start?
Competitive Analysis
We took time to look at other competitors in the intranet space to make sure our redesigns would align with common mental models and design patterns used elsewhere. We also took of common features as well as potential UX or design failings we could improve upon.
User Research
We performed generative research to define user pain points using 1:1 live remote user interviews. This research was conducted with 26 participants that represented various roles and types of users.
The Hub’s home page is “cluttered,” “too much,” and “overwhelming”
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Consider an audit of the most visited policies/documents and make them readily available
- Use IA analysis to define the content the associate needs then focus on wants
Navigation
The navigation is overwhelming and confusing but I have to use it because search doesn't really work.
V. Schenk
Sales Associate
Homepage
I pretty much ignore everything on this page and just use a couple of shortcuts because everything is outdated and rarely applies to me.
M. Hewson
Director of Customer Service
Lack of personalization
The Hub seems overly focused on HQ. I want to see information that's personalized to me and more specific to my location and/or department.
S. Fischer
Remote Manager
Homepage
There's always so much content on the homepage but a lot is outdated. Sometimes I just want to find to watch the recording of the last all hands and can't.
C. Barry
Senior Marketing Designer
Search
I find The HUB generally confusing and hard to navigate so I use Search but it usually doesn't work the way I expect or results I get are not current and I just end up contacting support or have my manager find what I was looking for.
R. Brewer
Lead Designer
I started a FigJam file based on research takeaways. I wanted to start with something low-fi to encourage stakeholder collaboration through commenting or low-fi design ideation. Some user feedback you'll see represented are having content personalized and customizable, shortcuts for most used areas of the portal, surfacing latest and most important information at the top, reducing clutter in the navigation, and more.
Before and After
Hover and use the slider to compare the legacy state vs the redesign.
Final Screens
Some highlights are: improved affordances throughout, a cleaner and simpler bottom nav, better charting and data visualizations, top KPIs more clearly called out, and the ability to chat with your coach from any screen.
Research Feedback
We conducted unmoderated research using UserTesting.com with a subset of our previous participants in the generative research study.
Homepage highlights:
- Overall feedback was positive with words like "simple", "clean", and "easy to use" used
- New shortcuts section was well received and users liked the customizability
- Don't rename any of the shortcuts as it's confusing
Search highlights:
- Add being able to filter by category
- Was positively received as much more usable but also technically more functional
Results and Reflection
This project was difficult to lead at times as there were product owners who didn't know what they really wanted and hadn't led a project like this before. This required patience and a fair amount of leadership on my part as UX to help guide and shape the requirements and goals of the project as it progressed.
Site traffic: Increased by +35%
Use of search decreased by over 40% because the site was that much easier to navigate
Was selected out of over 600 nominees to receive an award for our work and impact
User quote
Feedback from HR stakeholder
Feedback from my manager
