Increasing accessibility to life-saving information
Improve access to critical cancer care information for >20,000 clinicians
Please Note: The finer details of this work (including the name of the client) have been withheld due to an NDA agreement.
Surveys
In-depth Interviews
Mixed-methods research
Thinking Styles Analysis
The Methods
Revamped the information architecture of an employee intranet serving >20,000 healthcare workers
Informed the content strategy of intranet webpages to make them easier to read
Shaped the future vision and strategy for a new intranet to make it more aligned with employee thinking styles and mental models
The Impact
Mixed-Methods UX Researcher
My Role
Project Director
Project Manager
Interaction Designer
Content Strategist
Product Manager (Client)
Web and Media Lead (Client)
UX Designer (Client)
Collaborators
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Our client was a cancer care research institute. They had recently merged with a research institute and employees of both organizations were having trouble navigating their intranets to find information to serve cancer patients.
The Problem
Research approach and my role
Understand employee mental models and thinking styles of the organization post-merger.
Develop user archetypes based on intranet navigation behaviors
Communicate user needs to content strategist to make intranet pages easier to read
Collaborate with interaction designer to revamp intranet Information Architecture (IA) to align with employee mental models
Run a survey with 500 employees to collect satisfaction ratings and desires for intranet improvement
Conduct 16 in-depth interviews with employees to understand their mental models
Conduct a thinking styles analysis to identify navigation behaviors
Example of what the thinking styles and mental model analysis process looks like
💡fun fact.
When we first started the project, we did not plan to do a thinking styles analysis - we were just going to develop role-based personas. However, I worked with my project director and suggested a thinking-styles approach because it would allow us to revamp the IA more efficiently.
We used in-depth interviews and survey research with the institute’s employees.
Methods
While it was important to get in-depth qualitative data about how employees understood the organization's structure and how they navigated their intranet, we also wanted to understand the scale of the identified problems. The combined employee count of both organizations was more than 20,000, so testing the scalability of the qualitative findings was important.
I built the survey after conducting initial interviews and worded questions such that they would allow me to assess the scale of the themes using quantitative analysis.
Why I chose these methods
We found that the major cause of confusion and difficulty in navigating the intranet was due to a misalignment between the intranet IA and employee mental models. Additionally, the present intranet failed to cater to two primary navigation behaviors, and its current design miscommunicated the intended purposes of the intranet.
Key Takeaway
We conducted a day-long strategy workshop with 10+ client stakeholders. The Majority of the stakeholders were surprised to learn about the employee mental models and kept referring to the thinking styles we uncovered during the concept design activities.
Impact
A warm up sketching activity to get the creative juices flowing for workshop attendees
My research informed the content strategy and IA of the new intranet, which will end up improving access to life-saving information for both healthcare providers and cancer patients.
Recognition
“I want to give tremendous High-5s to the project team supporting the workshop yesterday! Our goal is to help form a strategy for a new unified intranet, and this workshop was stacked with activities to help their team understand user needs, ideate solutions, and have meaningful conversations to align their team. This was a hybrid workshop, which as we all know, is very tricky. How do you leverage the benefits of in-person collaboration while also being inclusive of team members joining remotely?
Ani confidently presented research findings that were so impactful and memorable that clients were referring to them throughout the workshop. The energy he brought to workshop and the thoughtful questions he proposed during activities helped the client stay grounded in serving users while also having fun.”
— Research Director, BlinkUX
“Well done to our amazing team for hosting a terrific, informative, and engaging workshop and happy hour in Seattle yesterday! Workshops take care and craft and I’ll add a bit of performance art in encouraging engagement (especially for the remote folks). You all did this and more. At the end of the day one of the clients said "“I came in with some pretty high expectations and your team far exceeded them!”