How do you decide what features and content make it on your new Intranet? Too often these decisions can get made in a meeting room full of Intranet business owners who want their stuff to be front and center. Other times these decisions might be made by an Intranet development team and perfectly suit their needs but no one else’s. In our opinion doing anything without a very significant involvement of real users is a risky proposition. In this session we’ll discuss: - What User Centered Design is - How to structure an Intranet design project with significant user engagement built-in - Steering the steering committee with good user research - How to get the most out of your user interactions through quality workshops and feedback sessions - Translating research into design - Turning users into evangelists for your project This session is a case study where all concepts are illustrated through examples from a recently completed Intranet redesign at Novartis.

1. Marek Nowakowski, Sr. UX Researcher/Designer
Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research
Listen to your Users:
Building an Intranet with “User Centered Design”

2. Novartis is a world-leading healthcare company
2 | Novartis company presentation | March 2015 | Business Use Only
2014 USD billion
Net sales: 58.0
Net income: 10.3
R&D investment: 9.9
Key figures
Leading market position
One of 25 largest companies by market capitalization
Among most respected companies globally
Sales by region 2014
Canada/
Latin America
US
EuropeAsia/Africa/
Australasia
37%
32%
21%
10%

3. Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR)
A global network of more than 6,000 scientists, physicians, and business professionals.
United States
• Cambridge, MA
• East Hanover, NJ
• Emeryville, CA
• La Jolla, CA (GNF)
Europe
• Basel/Zurich, Switzerland
• Siena, Italy (NVGH)
Asia
• Shanghai, China
• Singapore (NITD)

4. How do I fit In

5. CONTENT
 What is “User Centered Design”
 Intranet Redesign Project
 Research
 Design
 Measure

9. Why should you get users involved

10. Why you need to do User Research properly

11. What can go wrong?

12. About NIBR Intranet
 Built on Sharepoint 2010
 Functional owner – Communications
 Platform Owner – IT
 Last Major Redesign - 2010

13. Project History

14. About Our Users

15. NIBR Intranet Redesign Project
 Make a Plan
 Research
• Stakeholder Interviews
• Secondary Research
• Establish User Group
• User Workshops
• Research Summary Report
 Design
• Wireframes
• Mock Ups
• Information Architecture

16. Make a Plan

17. RESEARCH

18. Stakeholder Interviews
 13 Stakeholders
 60 minute Interviews – recorded w permission
 Standardized Interview Guide
• Current State
• Future State
• What is Success
• Obstacles to Success
• Overcoming Obstacles

19. Stakeholder research highlights
 Current State:
• The default page gets skipped most of the time
• Users don’t really need to go there
• Design is dated and inconsistent
• There is too much content and it’s not targeted to the users so most of it is
not relevant
• It’s impossible to use on your mobile device
• Doesn’t encourage collaboration or employee engagement
• Concerns about speed and performance
 Future State
• Personalization/Customization
• Exchange platform
• (My) Gateway to NIBR
• Lean state-of-the-art design

20. Stakeholder research highlights cont.
 Ensuring Success
• Ensure that there is heavy user involvement throughout the whole
project, including user tests and user feedback sessions
• Pilot new features as early and as much as possible and constantly
gather feedback
• Keep the user community engaged, let them know what we’re
doing, why, and how it will benefit them
• Start communicating early
• Focus on important features - don’t throw in features just because
you can

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YES!!!!
Stakeholders Want
User Engagement

22. Secondary Research

23. User Workshops

24. What do I like and dislike about the current Intranet
 Object of Exercise
• Define what NIBR users like and dislike the existing Intranet
 Materials:
• Post-It Notes
• Marker
 Time: 10 minutes plus discussion
 How To
• On Post-it notes write down at least 5 different things you like and
dislike. Pin the notes on board.

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26. What do I want from the Intranet
26
 Object of Exercise
• Define what NIBR users want from the Intranet
 Materials:
• Post-It Notes
• Marker
 Time: 10 minutes plus discussion
 How To
• On Post-it notes write down at least 10 different things you want to
find on the Intranet. Pin the notes on board.

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28. Value Mapping
 Object of Exercise
• Find out which content is most important
 Materials:
• stickers
 Time: 10 minutes plus discussion
 How To
• Each participant will receive a number of stickers from the facilitator.
Apply stickers to the most important content from previous exercise.

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30. Magic Wand
 Object of Exercise
• Generate ideas for Intranet Home Page
 Materials:
• Cards, paper, tape, markers
 Time: 45 minutes plus discussion
 How To
• Participants will be broken into groups. Each group will design a
Home Page for the new NIBR Intranet.

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32. Research Summary Report
 Stakeholder Research
 User Research
 Secondary Research

34. Key Research Findings
 Personalization is key
• Basic
• Crowd sourced
• Activity based
• User selected
 News overload
 Content can be hard to find
 To search or not to search
 People search works but can be better
 Busy layout and dated design

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Steer the Project
• Have a solid plan
• Involve them early
• Understand what they need
• Share research findings early
• Make findings clear and simple
• Use research for all design decisions
• User needs always get the last word

36. DESIGN

37. Design
 Start with low-fidelity and focus on functionality
 Always informed by research
 Users still very much involved
 Continually solicit feedback and test
 Multiple iteration based on feedback from users, project
team, stakeholders
 Create high-fidelity designs when basic functionality and
interactions have been defined

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43. Defining Information Architecture

44. Information Architecture

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50. Let users play with it to find out what works and
what doesn’t

51. Run a Beta
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 Get feedback from a larger user
group
 Introduce users to the new site
 Find bugs
 Have enough time to address
biggest found issues

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53. Take Home Message
 Have a solid research plan
• Current state
• Future state
 Establish a good relationship with stakeholders and a user
group
• Involvement
• Information
 Research fuels design
 Be transparent
 Feedback loop never ends

54. THANK YOU!
Please contact me at
marek.nowakowski@novartis.com
 If you have questions
 If you have feedback
 If you want to be BFFs