NXP Semiconductors Intranet Redesign
Designing an intranet site for the Sales IT & Customer Experience teams
CONTINUE READING
SKIP TO FINAL OUTCOME
Project Brief
Research & Discovery
Defining
Development
Redirections & Testing
Final Outcome
Reflection

Project Brief

Role
Digital Intern
Team
Me
Sales IT Manager
Sales IT Architect Mentor
Timeline
10 weeks, Summer 2023
Tools
Sharepoint
Figma
Visio

The Objective

How can I organize disparate information, repair outdated systems, streamline processes, and visually transform the intranet used at NXP?

Goals

My manager and I laid out the top 3 goals that I wanted my site to accomplish:

  • Support employees in finding information for any task they are completing

  • Increase team communication and cohesion in order to foster a better team culture and stronger coworker bonds

  • Boost employee attitudes and development by sharing soft skill trainings, company news, and other info

Research & Discovery

Market Research

‍To begin my brainstorming, I researched about the characteristics of the most successful company intranets. I concluded that the most useful aspects of an intranet were:

Defining

The Problem

The Sales IT team works to provide enhancements and technical support for the various applications used by the Sales team at NXP Semiconductors. The Sales IT team had no centralized location within the NXP intranet to house all of their information and resources, so my role was to create a rich and intuitive site to act as their central hub of information.
Does a strong intranet really matter?
Research indeed shows that a company's intranet can make or break the company workflows and culture, ultimately affecting long-term productivity. The most notable statistics I found on company intranets were:
  • According to Gartner: 74% of CFO’s expect to permanently transition on-site employees to remote positions, meaning that a high-quality intranet is more essential than ever.
  • According to Zipdo, “companies with well-structured and well-designed intranets save their employees an average of 44 minutes per day.”
  • According to Gitnux, “56% of managers believe intranets boost workplace satisfaction.”
Target Audience
To find my primary stakeholders in the intranet website, I set up interviews with employees across NXP to better understand how they interact with the Sales IT team. The results revealed that my audience would be members of the Sales IT team, of course, plus several related teams, such as Marketing, Customer Experience (CX), and General Information Technology (GIT).
Scope and Constraints
As an intern, my project was restricted in various ways. For example:

Platform
‍

Due to company policy, I was forced to use Sharepoint as the medium of my site. Sharepoint has very limiting design capacity.

Development

Site Mapping
Before beginning wireframes, I conducted card sorting exercises to lay out several variations of a proposed site map. Upon feedback from my manager, we picked the final version:

Redirections & Testing

Redirections

After creating my initial prototype of the site, I realized that a few issues had arisen.

  • Users had restricted access to certain content on the site, such as sensitive budget spreadsheets or software training documents. Thus, I had to go back and re-sort my categories in order to sort by who has access so people wouldn’t waste time clicking into documents that are locked.
  • The information density of the site was too high.  I revisited my categorization and added 4 child pages branching off of the parent page, which resulted in a much less overwhelming and more simplistic look.
  • The site had a dull feel. Upon discussion with my manager, we decided that employees needed a better sense of motivation. I re-visited the UI and added more attractive visuals and colors to subconsciously boost employees' emotions.

Testing

After creating my first few rounds of revisions to the site, I conducted user testing with some employees and fellow interns. The areas of focus for my study were the following:

1. How quickly did employees find what they needed?
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2. How satisfied were employees after navigating the site?
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3. Are there any other resources or features that employees would like to see?
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4. Were labels and text clear in conveying what they needed to?

Final Outcome

Due to NDA, I am unable to show the final product of the Intranet site in visual format.

Feature

Details

Current Project Section
With embedded Jira boards and project-related links
Current Project Section
With embedded Jira boards and project-related links
Central Document Library
Filtering options such as sorting by date modified rather than just by name
Newsletter Archive
An archive folder containing all past newsletters for the Sales IT team
Personal Growth Area
Certifications, career advancement tips, Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
Onboarding Area
With links and training resources for new team members
Company Announcements & Upcoming Events
To keep employees integrated in the company and improve culture
Employee Directory & Org Charts
To help employees collaborate cross-functionally
Shared PTO Calendar
To help with project planning efforts
Reflection
What I learned

1. Don’t be afraid to admit what you don’t know.

As this was my first corporate internship, there were many areas of ambiguity for me. I had to swallow my pride and ask my coworkers for guidance very often, but I was pleasantly surprised that almost all of them were willing to go above and beyond to not only help me but teach me something new in the process! By forcing myself out of my comfort zone, I met many UX Designers at the company who enriched my knowledge of the field and provided me with valuable life lessons.

2. Make it a goal to learn something new every day.

My manager encouraged me to read a different article from the Nelson Norman UX group each morning. These small tidbits of knowledge I consumed each day added up, eventually helping me to catch new flaws in my site or add in elements to make it more usable.

3. You are not the user.

There were countless times that I assumed a feature's purpose and task flow would be blatantly obvious to the user; yet when I put that very feature in front of him or her, it caused confusion. This really opened my eyes to the fact that every user has a different mental model for a digital product, influenced by their culture, environment, genetics, and beliefs.

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