SharePoint Migration – Knowledge Management Website Redesign
The UX Challenge
The Department of State was modernizing hardware and migrating an intranet Knowledge Management SharePoint website for a mission critical application from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2013. The Client request: migrate all content, rebrand the program, and improve the user experience. *Due to client sensitivity, I am happy to discuss this project with you, but am limited on what I can show.
The UX Approach
After sitting down with the Client I was able to document high level requirements: functional, technical, and change management as well as perform a full content audit on the website including webpages, libraries, lists, and content types.
Using interviews and surveys to gather user feedback, I showed the Client how the current site only met two of the seven UX ideologies for success: Useful and Valuable.
As I explained to the Client, the goal was to achieve all seven ideologies. Based on research, users desired more findable, credible content that met the accessible Federal Government requirements. Users saw the value in the website, but could not easily find up-to-date information. As old information was not removed or marked with a recent review date validating the information was still accurate, and duplication in content began to occur because Administrators struggled to manage all of the content types, the website became less useful for numerous stakeholder groups.
With all of this research in mind, the goal of the redesign was to streamline the website, clean up the content, and make it more manageable for all stakeholders.
Survey Feedback
The UX Impact and Final Product
Through an interactive prototype, user feedback identified four key areas of information that users gravitated towards. With bandwidth constraints a top concern, and a requirement to keep site administration to a minimum, the new website design relied on metadata tagging and “portals” to quickly direct users to updated content that required a low level of maintenance effort from site administrators. Improving the search functionality of the website allowed users to tap into their familiarity with other search engines to quick find, filter, and retrieve the information they were looking for.
Working closely with the Client and taking advantage of this multi-version Microsoft SharePoint website migration, we were able to create a more manageable knowledge management website with credible content that relied on metadata tagging and filters to search, and find, desired information.
My role: product manager, user research (including interviews and surveys), requirements gathering, content audit, site map development, wireframes, interactive prototype, and content migration and website build out.