FIFCO USA Intranet
Design & Development
Fall 2020 -Fall 2021
In late 2020 the IT Team was approached by the Talent team to explore solutions for a company intranet. After discussion we agreed that WordPress would be a cost-effective and scalable solution that would be easy for users to use and for us to maintain. We did extensive user research and collaborative design to make sure we were building the right product for our team. Because we designed and developed the intranet on top of our regular duties, the full process, including socialing the project and training users took just under one year.
- Role
- user research, information architecture, php development, server set up, custom WordPress development
- Team
- Jenny Keller, Denise Nadal and Joe Rice
- Org
- FIFCO USA
Research
Initial Project Requirements
Through an interview process with the Talent Team SME, we developed the following project brief:
Business goals
- Need an easy way to share and update content with all FIFCO employees, including Costa Rica, that works on any device. The existing solution (sharepoint) is full of outdated content, is difficult to use, and not responsive.
- Need a single source of truth for company policies and procedures and place to embody company culture and drive change.
- What outcomes do you want to achieve — are they measurable?
- Improve communication between CR and USA
- Improve cross functional communication between teams
- Less duplication of resources
Product Purpose
Build a content management system for a company-wide intranet system. It should be a one-stop destination for information about company policies, procedures and news.
Target audience
FIFCOUSA Employees. They will be looking for company policies, procedures, information, and news. We want then to view the newsletter and engage with timely content
- this includes employees who are not tech savvy, do not have FIFCO accounts, may not have smart phones
- some do not speak english (costa rica)
- disabilities/accessibility issues.
User Research
We used a combination of interviews and surveys to uncover the common needs of employees at FIFCO USA. Based on the responses we received we were able to determine what content needed to be added to the site and what links needed highest visibility and ease of access. We were able to use these insights to design our site navigation and information architecture.
Survey Questions
- How satisfied are you with the resources and support available to you in your role?
- What is the one thing that would make the biggest difference for you?
- What productivity or administrative tools or websites do you use during a normal workday?
- What administrative tasks do you complete online?
- What information do you need to look up regularly?
- What information about our company or other teams at our company, do you wish you knew?
- What would you like to see on a website designed for FIFCO USA employees?
Design Process
Once we had the site map and information architecture planned, I focused on researching and planning out the development process while Joe Rice focused on the visual design. Jenny Keller and myself offered feedback and helped refine the design.
We turned the designs into Frigma prototypes and tested them against several stakeholders in the organization. We used their feedback to further refine the designs.
Development
For development, I started by building a static site containing examples of all the page templates I would need to create. For the styling, I used the Material Design Boostrap library to set us up and running faster. I then set up a local copy of WordPress using the Local by Flywheel app, and the Understrap theme. From there I was able to put my static site’s code into the Understrap theme and start to customize it as needed.
From there, I just had to build and test all the page templates, widgets, custon plugins, and set up all the sites and plugins.
