Detailed case study
Redesign employee portal
Background
Within AstraZeneca's employee portal, the HR, IT and Finance departments had traditionally occupied their own dedicated space.
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However, a recent initiative had seen these 3 entities merge into a single new site – AskAZ.
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Following the launch of AskAZ, internal feedback reported many employees were struggling to use the new site, and in particular, find the contact details for whichever of the 3 departments they were looking for. This was the most frequently searched information on the site.
Existing site
A conscious decision had been made during the ‘merger’ to push users to self-serve using the knowledge sections rather than provide easy access to relevant contact information.
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I was tasked with investigating why employees weren’t using the site as predicted.
The Team
Working autonomously, I reported directly to a small group of senior stakeholders representing the 3 internal departments – HR, IT and Finance.
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For the duration of the project, I worked remotely, as did most of the stakeholders.
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Regular weekly catch-ups were scheduled to inform the wider team of progress. These were supplemented with daily online meetings with key individuals at relevant stages in the project.
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This method of working proved very successful and the project ran smoothly.
My Approach
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Create online survey to elicit feedback of AskAZ – include invite for employees to take part in 1-2-1 interviews to “help improve the system”
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Analyse results of survey to establish common tasks and key experience factors
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Select 20 employees, from across the globe, who expressed an interest in helping improve the system (captured as part of the survey) and invite for 1-2-1 interviews
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Observe users undertaking 2-3 tasks (relevant to their survey results)
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Capture journey and pain-points
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Propose UX design improvements (layout, content, labelling etc)
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Present findings and recommendations to internal team/stakeholders
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Agree proposed recommendations and hand over to the platform team
Core deliverables:
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Online survey
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Analysis of survey results
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Discussion guide for 1-2-1 (remote) user testing
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User testing report
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Interface design recommendations
Issues
Portal awareness...
One thing I wasn’t expecting from the research was the widespread lack of awareness from users that the 3 separate entities had merged into a single portal.
They were still looking for the familiar icons that would direct them to where they wanted to be.
Extract from user testing report
View all...
The way the page was visually punctuated, users thought the link to ‘View all’ related to the 8 tiles they were seeing to the left. They expected to see more of these tiles if they clicked ‘View all’.
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‘View all’ actually related to ‘My Tickets’, or ‘To do’ if selected.
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In this case ‘View all’ didn’t do anything because there wasn’t any ‘Tickets’ to view’. This further confused the user.
Tabs & Tiles...
Again, due to the visual layout, users did not associate the 3 tabs (Quick Links, Recent Items’ & ‘Trending Now’) on the white ribbon, with the 8 tiles on the grey background underneath.
‘Trending Now’ also proved unpopular and, when prompted, users saw more benefit in a ‘Favourites’ section instead.
Extract from user testing report
Extract from user testing report
Contact us...
This proved to be the most frustrating issue.
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Users identified the ability to access the ‘Contact us’ page from either the tile on the homepage, or from a link in the header bar.
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However, their expectations of seeing contact details were quickly dashed when they came to this page and were faced with a search bar.
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During testing very few candidates were able to complete the set task of finding a the contact details for one of either HR, IT or Finance.
Extract from user testing report
Redesign
Portal awareness...
I proposed visually lifting the AskAZ brand and using a subheading to reinforce that this was now the combined home of IT, HR and Finance.
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I also suggested we feature the existing iconography, that users were familiar with, to further emphasise the proposition.
View all...
I repurposed the ‘My tickets’ section to show how many ‘open’ and ‘closed’ tickets the user had. The label of the CTA was also changed from ‘View all’ to ‘Show tickets’.
Tabs & Tiles...
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The disassociation issues between the tab labels and the corresponding tiles was easily rectified with a change of visual treatment.
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The unpopular ‘Trending now’ was also replaced with a ‘Favourites’ feature.
Contact us...​
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The results of the 1-2-1 testing showed that users really wanted to see contact details when they clicked on the ‘Contact us’ link. They didn’t want to ‘self-serve’ by searching on a help subject – as initially proposed and featured in the existing portal.
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A simple redesign removed the confusing search box and displayed the 3 familiar icons representing each of the core entities.
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Clicking on any of these icons surfaced the relevant contact details (telephone, email etc) underneath.
Revised landing page
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Figma prototype - link unavailable due to confidentiality
Revised 'Contact Us' page
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Figma prototype - link unavailable due to confidentiality
Outcomes
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17 separate issues were identified and rectified.
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The prototype tested well and eliminated the frustrations and issues seen with the existing portal.
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The dev team, using ServiceNow platform, were able to swiftly integrate all recommendations.
Existing portal
Figma prototype
Figma prototype - link unavailable due to confidentiality