Embedded Files
Through a series of progressive roles, I grew from learning the MS SharePoint platform, to designing regional and systemwide sites serving 120k employees, to eventually teaching & developing design guidance.
CLIENTS: PROVIDENCE HEALTH & SERVICES
Third-largest health system in U.S.GOALS: Utilize existing tech stack to improve internal information architecture, staff navigation & up-to-date governance.AUDIENCE: Staff groupings of 1,000, 20,000, and 120,000CHANNELS: Microsoft SharePoint OnlineSPONSORS: Group COO, regional CE, system CMOTEAMS ENGAGED: Executive teams; operations directors, departmental non-design staff, SMEs, end users
Third-largest health system in U.S.GOALS: Utilize existing tech stack to improve internal information architecture, staff navigation & up-to-date governance.AUDIENCE: Staff groupings of 1,000, 20,000, and 120,000CHANNELS: Microsoft SharePoint OnlineSPONSORS: Group COO, regional CE, system CMOTEAMS ENGAGED: Executive teams; operations directors, departmental non-design staff, SMEs, end users
The problem
The problem
Getting new tools won't necessarily fix UX issues:
The US third-largest healthcare system transitioned from piecemeal self hosted intranets like the one above, to the new Modern SharePoint experience from Microsoft.
Without guidance, the organization proceeded to stand up hundreds of self-built, disorganized and duplicative pages, like the one above - serving 120,000 employees, but utilizing text links, rather than SPO web parts.
I was asked to transition the sub-organization's site (top left), and went on to build regional and systemwide pages (below).
UX Research
UX Research
Surveying user needs
Surveying user needs
As we set out to rebuild our intranet using Microsoft SPO, it was important to get a sense of what was/was not working with the old intranet.
I designed a survey to gather a range of quantitative and qualitative input about user priorities that could guide our in-depth design conversations.
Topics gaugued:
Demographic & usage data (role, where you view the Pac, etc.)
A Likert scale, rating the importance of various functions, pages and use cases
Open-ended questions like features desired, homepage elements, and what would attract them to use the tool more.
Our response rate/sample size equated to about 5% of the organization.
Iterative collective design
Iterative collective design
v.1
v.2
v.4
Guided by survey data, I hosted a series of "design sessions" with organizational leaders (people managers and up).
At each session, our design team shared a Wireframe and potential information architecture, updated from leaders' previous-meeting input and discussion.
Over the series of meetings, we settled on a layout & site/menu structure that we began to build in SharePoint and then released to leaders for testing between later sessions.
Distributed Design & Governance
Distributed Design & Governance
Past intranets had faced challenges like out-of-date pages, contradictory resource versions, and a general lack of governance.
To avoid this problem with the new site:
Build the new SPO as a "hub site," with centrally-managed org content on the hub level, with department-managed subsites
Trained a page/site owner from each dept. to make updates
Define a governance review period for each page
The "Builders' Guide" was built right into the new SharePoint
For new SharePoint builders, I hosted a series of trainings and weekly drop-in office hours for people to get help with their builds.
To assist with self-service, we designed an intranet "Builders Guide" representing design choices made by the Directors' group, an in-depth custom PDF style guide, and curated resources from Microsoft.
Visuals of site architecture and project timeline helped give context.
A "page tracker" was built using MS Lists to keep page links, assigned parties, and progress organized.
Guidance for non-designers, like access to approved photography, was included
Final Products
Final Products
The redesigned local intranet launched successfully. This included site architecture for 125 pages, 75 of which were built and/or in progress when I transitioned to a regional role.
In the new role, I was to support four medical groups. Part of the role was to support uniting these groups, which had formerly been competitors before acquisition. into a single culture/entity, The regional SharePoint site I was asked to build supported this goal.
Local site
Local site
One medical group
Regional site
Regional site
Uniting four medical groups
Intranet Design Principles
Intranet Design Principles
Drawing on these experiences, I began serving as an in-house expert for SharePoint content design and building. My new team served at the system level--supporting all operations across 7 states and 120,000 employees.
When the measles outbreak took hold in part of our footprint, senior system leadership asked for the rapid deployment of technical data, measles education (for doctors who had never seen a case), workflows and more. Our team was asked to build the SharePoint site.
I was assigned the task and, working closely with a team of experts including the system chief medical officer for infection prevention, built the system Measles SharePoint site.
It took me 8 hours to build the site below. Design principles learned from prior projects guided the work.
To facilitate rapid uptake, the site was designed as a single page.
A jump-list of contents facilitated easy navigation to relevant sections
Dynaminc embedded webparts played a central role for a low-maintenance yet relevant experience.
The system stood up a Grand Rounds, presented by a doctor serving at the heart of the Texas outbreak.
Sharing this content for later viewing, I enabled in-window viewing, download of the powerpoint, and a quick-reference FAQ from the session.
For a reference presentation, I built a table of contents external to the presentation, so users can preview contents before committing to a click
For design items, rather than text links, I chose to feature the artwork prominently for instant skimming to assess its value.
To save users time, I prearranged the material to be housed at our print shop, and provided the login link as well as item numbers for easy refernce and ordering.
Similarly, our social stack was loaded as a rotating carousel for a quick view of public info we were putting out.
One principle I developed for all pages I work on/advise is "authoring" the page.
This means not only listing the person who built the page, but also experts who provided content.
Listing all contributors facilitates easy pathways for users who have questions or suggestions.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse