IHA Works

Overview

I led Wells Fargo's IHA Works research, design, and development. Conducted user research and analysis to help define the strategy for the project and guided the team through brainstorming and prioritization to create a roadmap for the product and established a governance plan to keep the site up-to-date and designed a modern experience on a legacy Share Point platform. 

Background

The request for this initiative was to improve the site's appearance. I was able to quickly research opportunities where we could improve the experience of the site beyond its appearance.  

Understand the problem

Survey

I wrote, built, and distributed a survey to get an idea of who was visiting the site, how often, their primary reasons for coming, and any issues they had with the site. I discovered that a handful of people weren’t even aware of the site. Those who came by mainly needed it for process, tool, and meeting documents.

IHA Works has been a good resource for accessing meeting decks, process docs, and team org charts. It serves the purpose well, considering I probably only visit the site once every couple of months.

Interviews

I took the initiative to write and schedule twelve 30 min interviews with leaders and stakeholders to gather more qualitative insights into opportunities for the product.

• Identify specific IHA Leader goals, behaviors, and context with IHA works site and share resources and information with the agency.
• Learn what resources are used for information search and distribution among IHA team members.
• Understand what is working well with IHA works and other resources and areas that can improve.

I don’t really like the dispersed information in various huddles and cascading emails. I wish we had a more uniform collective touch base. Making something more effective making sure that everyone understands what to do and why we are doing it. 

I would love to see all the work…in my past we could always see what other lines of businesses are working on. I think that inspires people and gives them a broader sense of going on. It creates a healthy competition.

Data analysis

Partnering with my content strategist Jen, we analyzed the qualitative data and searched for patterns and themes. Some of the themes included navigation, search pinpoints, and a common pattern of users dealing with outdated information.

Opportunity statements

We took the themes and turned them into statement starters to open them up to solution possibilities for our future brainstorming. Stepping away from solutions and looking at broader issues and opportunities will inspire innovative thinking in our future brainstorming. The results included:

• How might we create an experience that is cutting edge?
• How might we enable IHA team members to contribute content seamlessly?
• How might we make a solution intuitive?
• How might we remove information clutter for IHA team members?
• How might we make content up-to-date and accurate?
• How to ensure content is concise and relevant?
• How to make it easy to find what IHA team members need?
• How might we get IHA team members to know everyone?

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Content audit

We cataloged and analyzed all of the content on a website, including its performance, who owned it, and if it was still relevant. Jen reached out to previous authors to validate the relevancy and gather new assets if available. We uncovered a lot of dated material, and we realized a governance plan was a priority to keep this product relevant. 

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Benchmark research

Working with the development team and learning our platform options, we landed on a legacy platform that would meet the needs of our security constraints. Share Point is dated; however, during my investigation, I found great examples of how we can modernize the site for its new goal: How might IHA Works become an invaluable resource?

Defining the problem

After some rapid research, we clearly understood the site’s history, expectations of the stakeholders and business, and needs of our users; I wrote up a brief as a guide for my designs and solutions.

Design the solution

Brainstorming

With the core creative team, I held a creative matrix working session. We brainstormed solutions based on the user opportunity statements. It helped us generate many ideas by promoting divergent thinking in a short amount of time.

Prioritization

I held virtual prioritization mapping exercises with the stakeholders to determine what ideas we came up with might have the highest investment return. Our number 1 focus was on navigation, followed by a forum and methods for keeping content updated. 

Card sort

Focusing on the architecture Jen and I ran a card sort to help design or evaluate the information architecture. These groupings had many iterations and eventually helped shape our site architecture and navigation.

Site structure

With some simple boxes and lines, I was able to map out a three-plus phase solution that solved for all the need states we uncovered. After consulting with development for launch, we proposed to launch with solutions targeting the top user needs around searching and uploading work and resources.

Sketches

I mapped out a rough blue-sky concept that incorporated all solution ideas. A few homepage iterations featured the latest work and resources with a hover interaction over the thumbnail image to favorite, flag, or download content. I had flowed for both adding and managing documents and posting to an internal forum.

Validating the solution

Usability test

I created a prototype, tested the experience with users, and noticed a persistent challenge when uploading thumbnails for the page. On a separate initiative, I became aware of another internal team’s challenges with the Microsoft social platform. I decided to cut back on the forum with low confidence it would be adopted quickly. I simplified the process of uploading and tagging assets by accounting for what users are already making to minimize any additional work.

Development

I worked closely with developers to implement the requirements and flows for different site sections. From the uploading flows to file management in the user profile. We ran a series of quality assurance testing to fix bugs and make adjustments to optimize the experience for launch. 

Content strategy

To address one top pain point of out-of-date content, our team built and established two of the solutions for the governance plan.

1. Assigned a maintenance team, defined a RACI, and scheduled regular working sessions to review the status of the site and remove outdated and irrelevant content
2. Setup Share Point Workflows to notify authors after six months to check the value of the content they are hosting on IHA Works.

Final work

Results and takeaways

• I am excited to have seen the evolution of this design and how user insights and testing shaped it into what it is today. The launch is just around the corner, and I look forward to learning and growing the site.
• A month post-launch, I will send out a survey to gather insights and cross-reference from the previous survey results. My quantitative KPI is on increased site visits.

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