Improving sections of content on the Intranet to aid the connection and engagement of employees

Background problem/Challenge 

Since our team took over the management of the Intranet, we’ve been receiving regular feedback on issues with the content of the pages. 

The most reported issues regarding the subject were: 

• The content of several pages is outdated and/or inaccurate. 
• Users have a hard time finding what they are looking for. 
• The look of the pages is unpleasant, not user friendly and not accessible enough.

The solution 

I first had to establish a governance structure for the site by finding ‘content or page owners’ who can be made responsible for the content on the site that relates to their speciality and can be contacted about reviewing and reassessing their pages.

After they were identified I started working with the content owners to rejuvenate the Intranet pages. 

The aim was to:

• Amend or remove old and out-of-date information. 
• Discover potential new content that could sit on the pages via applying a user-centred approach. 
• Create more pleasant, user-friendly layouts for the site and the pages.

What benefits were we hoping to see? 

• Minimise the council staff’s access to out-of-date, inaccurate information by erasing it from the site. 
• Boost engagement of the site by discovering and adding new content that is aligned with user needs. Which would lead to improved internal communications within the wider council. 
• Solving some of the usability issues of the site by redesigning the pages (replacing call-to-action buttons with more user-friendly ones, reformatting large blocks of text…etc.) to improve the user experience. 
• Training content creators on the use of basic editing functions of the site to help them self-serve in the future. 

What was our approach? 

I have been contacting the previously identified content owners before, requesting that they check the quality of their content.  Now I also started to offer them additional help with the work, and the potential to explore how the Intranet can improve the work life of their teams or service.

The project plan involved delivering three workshops:

• First workshop – Discovery and Requirements
• Second workshop – Content
• Third Workshop – Review and Go Live

First workshop – Discovery and Requirements 

The aim of this workshop is to introduce content creators to user-centred design and explore potential content for their pages.

It consists of two parts:

Part 1
An interactive user needs analysis questionnaire to introduce them to user-centred thinking.

Part 2
A small presentation to explain the basic principles of web design with special emphasis on user behaviour and accessibility.

Outcomes of the first workshop:

• The notes from the session, with the identified new content for the pages, are distributed to the content creators.
• Established deadline for content creators to deliver their new content.
• The next workshop is scheduled to discuss the options and design for sharing the new content.

Second workshop – Content

This workshop took place after the content creators delivered the new content, and its aim was to discuss any initial questions that came up during the process. At this point I also presented the creators with design options or a wireframe for their content.

Outcomes of the second workshop:

• Coming to an understanding on the structure and design of the pages.
• I can finalise the design and start the building work on the pages.

Third Workshop – Review and Go Live

I scheduled the last workshop after I finished building the pages and sent out the draft version to the content owners to review. This workshop’s aim was to review the new content together, make any last-minute changes if necessary and for the content owners to receive a demonstration on content editing.

Outcomes of the second workshop:

• Coming to a final agreement on the design and structure of the pages.
• Content creators are trained to be able to make minor changes to their content (editing texts, changing link, etc…).
• Publishing the pages. (With the exception when the draft pages needed to be reviewed and signed off by more people within the service.)

The results

Content creators are more engaged and have a better understanding of the SharePoint page editing system. We receive regular feedback regarding their satisfaction with the site and the new collaboration model.

User research:

• Quantitative:
  • As the outcome of working with content creators closely, to help them explore the potential of an intranet, the number of pages on the site has grown from 361 to 542 within a year. (During this time a large number of pages were also deleted, therefore we can safely conclude that the number of Intranet pages has almost doubled within a year.)
  • User engagement with the site also increased. More users are visiting site pages that are not the home page. Site usage data from 25 January 2023 shows that the combined visitation of the most popular site pages (excluding the home page) within a 7-day period increased by 37.4% compared to 31 January 2022.
• Qualitative – Results from the yearly user satisfaction survey:
  • According to user survey where participants were asked to rate their experience using the site from 1 to 10 the average rating of the site went up from 5.72 to 6.97, which is a 21.8% increase compared to last year.
  • People are more likely to try to search the site when they are looking for council-wide information. For example, the number of people who chose the Intranet over other means to look up council processes went up by 14.9%, and to look up policies increased by 11.6%.

What’s next? 

• Content owners are added to our established content management system and regularly reminded to check their pages.
• Our team is working on the plan to automatise some of the process the Intranet is responsible for via AI automation.