Problem/Client:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) currently has a intranet site for their Change Management Unit (CMU), but it has very basic in design and lacks a lot of important content in regards to informing employees on what Change Management is. My team and I redesigned the whole CMU site so that the IMF could better inform its employees on what the CMU is, what they do and what its benefits are.
Constraints:
By understanding these constraints we wanted to focus on something that was feasible for the IMF infrastructure but still held true to a strong user experience.Limited Time Frame
Roughly 8 business days to go from beginning of project to finished prototype files
Limited Access to Product
Provided with screenshots at the outset, with more available on request
No access to any IMF employees or staff
Sharepoint 2010 Architecture
Limited font selection (Arial)
Limited amount of page elements and design features
Staying within the IMF style guide as much as possible
Research/Secondary Research:
Our goal was so that we could fully understand the meaning of Change Management. Specifically :
What is change management at a high-level?
What is necessary for effective change management?
We each looked at various articles online from legitimate sources such as Berkeley University of California, Harvard and Prosci, to find out:
what were the best practices and guidelines for implementation of change management policies practices
what are the requirements of successful change
what are some common pitfalls of poorly managed change initiatives
What We Learned:
Change Management is about changing people’s behavior
People are the most important factor when implementing change
Buy-in is crucial, so employees need to understand the reasoning and justification for the changes in order to truly get behind them
There has to have a clear vision and goals for the company’s needs when implementing change
Open communication between employees and those dictating internal changes is integral to success
Can help to cultivate a culture of being proactive towards adapting to change
The most effective way to communicate to employees during a process of change is to explain the impact it will have on them personally, rather than big-picture effects
User Research:
My team and I set out to complete a number of short-form user interviews to learn more about general perceptions of change management.
Methods:
Targeting specific types of people who would have some experience in a corporate environments
Interviewing a total of 13 different participants: ages 24 to 57, 5 women and 8 men
All with corporate experience of change management
Experience across a range of industries: Finance, Broadcast Tech, Telecoms, Medical Research, Hospitality, Banking, Healthcare, Federal Consulting, Retail Management, Private Equity, Home Security
User Interview Results:
Change Management Needs:
Main key to success is stakeholder buy-in
Empathy on the part of leadership
Open channels for feedback
Organizational support system throughout change cycle
Employees Need:
Access to an actual person
Personalized content
Upfront information on the effect to them personally.
Frequent communication on points relevant to them
Clear communication on logistics and severity of impact
Regarding Technology/Intranet:
Can’t replace person-to-person interaction
Major Needs:
Brevity | Efficiency | Specifics | Relevance | Support
Key Findings:
Our Design Process:
To start this process we arranged existing content by making note of what the main content would be of each page and how it benefits the user.
In order to determine how to best organize and present our content, our team went and completed a whiteboarding session, allowing each of us to quickly share and critique our ideas.
Doing so allowed us to develop important insights about the organization of the content within the site, allowing us to create low-fidelity sketches.
Eventually, this led to the creation of medium fidelity digital prototypes, which then served as the core design that we built our final site prototypes around.
Testing and Iteration:
When we completed our design process, my group presented our Medium Fidelity prototype to our client to get some feedback.
While the client overall really liked what we had, she still gave us a few suggestions:
More obvious connection between big 5 content and the header above it
About us should have a more formal explanation at the very top
Landing page header should be removed and revisions made to better focus on the imagery of the page rather than the text
The phone number on the side bar should be replaced with address for the CMU HQ
Create a Resources and Tools Page
Usability Testing:
Methods:
We tested a total of 6 people
Targeted general users since we felt a person didn’t have to be from the IMF to understand how navigable and visually appealing the site was
Wanted to see if users were able to recognize major features and knew what each page was about just by taking a quick look at it
Feedback:
Some confusion about which buttons were CTA’s
Contact Us form was not very clear
Adjustments to sizing of content and amount of white space
Final Design:
Next Steps:
Change Management Unit Localized Search Feature
Expanded Contact Form
Features to expand the personalized feel of the site
Reformed and Modernized Design Style