Being powered and developed within Salesforce, the CDK Intranet redesign project presented a great deal of challenges:
• Create a brand-new Intranet interface for a brand-new company
• Offer a user-driven interface of commonly-used functions
• Solve key usability challenges of previous ADP intranet (bucketed content, confusing • nomenclature, ease of updates within a large corporation)
One of the greatest opportunities in moving out from under the umbrella of ADP and launching our own company was being given a clean slate for Intranet functionality. (I soon realized "within reason" was a phrase I'd become very close to... the site was to be developed on a Salesforce platform rather than HMTL5.) I gathered user feedback about changes people would like to see, what common tasks they used the site for, what their frustrations and pain points were, and my thoughts for getting those roadblocks eliminated. Page "stickiness" had to be reduced - not increased - because the faster my user could accomplish their task, leave the site and get back to work, the better the site was. (Try explaining that to the executives footing the bill for this kind of project!)
Sample feedback:
CAN WE ADD A SEARCH FUNCTION? We should be able to track metrics on this and add relevant links as the Portal site grows...
Can we add a Calendar Of Events? That’d be great. And can you add calendar events to Outlook — coworkers birthdays, holidays, closures, special events at locations? How do we handle separate locations? Can the calendar be internationalized or regional?
We need to retain the Communities... Are we held to rebranding our internal sharepoint sites, etc… Do they take off ADP logo, etc.?
Now that we knew what people wanted, I was able to develop a list of the most important user tasks. (Thankfully now, I used Evernote rather than real post-it notes for this exercise)
Once the initial rounds of user feedback were collected, I began to formulate a more ideal, less 'metaphorical' site architecture. (On the previous site, would you think to look up your Vacation Balance under My Career or My Life? People don't want to have to think - they have a day job to do.)
Proposed sitemaps:
Hosting weekly meetings with my remote staff helped keep the project on track, and continuing to gather user feedback brought up other features and functions we would need to account for...
Wireframes for CDK Global Intranet Design (Created with Balsamiq)
Login Screen wireframe:
Proposed Menu Functionality wireframes (on/off states)
Redline Specficiations for CDK Global Intranet Design
Beta version mockup:
Tools page mockup to interface with ADP-housed technology
Adding "Chatter" Functionality
One of the cool features of the project was that since it incorporated "Chatter" - (basically a Twitter knockoff), I was able to solicit feedback and feature requests company-wide pretty easily just by posting things like "I'm working on the new Portal site... What would you like to see?"
With often same-day feedback, the new Associate Portal became not only a study in user-centered design, but a constantly evolving new site that could serve the needs of the staff the way WE WANTED a portal site to work.
Round 2: Exapanding functionality with HR policy requirements
HR brought us changes for the next round of functionality additions, post-launch. As policies were posted and needed action to be taken on the employee's end, notifications were both emailed and called out on the Intranet.
Notification badges
Badges on user profile icon alerted user to action, but did not demand immediate interaction (ideal for non-time sensitive alerts):
Modal popup requiring policy interaction for compliance (wireframe)
Some policies required immediate verification for HR compliance. In this instance, the user was presented with modal popups which (A) avoided popup blockers and (B) isolated only tasks user needed to take to eliminate distraction and procrastination.
