Summary
The goal for this website was to create a user-friendly onboarding and training solution that could be easily accessed, managed, and scaled for our Florida Blue employees. Given the multitude of acronyms, terms, applications, and other complexities within our organization, we aimed to alleviate the potential overwhelm for both new and long-time employees.
Tools Used
Adobe XD
Font Awesome Pro 5 and 6
Project Date
2020-2021
Reason
At Florida Blue, we have employed Sharepoint as our intranet and training portal. To describe Sharepoint as under-functioning and clunky for this purpose would be a considerable understatement. To address this issue, I was assigned the task of devising a solution that could be scaled and utilized across the entire enterprise. With an abundance of "tribal knowledge" dispersed among employees, consolidating this information into a unified source for easy access was identified as a potential catalyst for increased productivity and peace of mind.
The users?
This was crafted for contractors, full-time employees, C-level executives, and more. Positioned as an "embedded view" within our enterprise application framework, Guidewell Connect, it enables all domains and departments across the company to offer this resource to anyone accessing the applications. Additionally, there is a standalone site, meticulously designed to ensure full responsiveness on various tablets utilized by leadership. While phone access, beyond a limited menu, wasn't a primary consideration at launch, it was envisioned for potential adaptation in the future.
The user base was classified into the following categories:
- Contractors
- Full-time employees
- Executive leadership
- Third-party vendors
Goals
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User-friendly
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Swift reference
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Comprehensive over time
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Capable of being embedded within our enterprise framework
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Able to address the requirements of each employee type
Diverse Workflows
With multiple users having distinct knowledge requirements, the aim was to avoid overwhelming everyone with a deluge of information. For it to serve as a quick reference, the content had to be organized in a manner where "contractors" only accessed information relevant to them. A sophisticated filter, employing a "relevant data" approach, proved to be an ideal solution for this project. It also facilitated scalability as the user groups expanded and diversified.
Challenges
Collecting the necessary reference data for a project of this scope presented several challenges. Florida Blue consists of multiple departments that were not within my direct assignment. Though not a particularly enjoyable task, my Business Systems Analyst (BSA) played a crucial role in gathering individual users from each department for me to shadow. This firsthand experience enabled me to identify the specific pain points users encountered when attempting to reference internal documentation and tribal knowledge.
Further Challenges
Following the collection of "aggregated knowledge," establishing the hierarchical structure posed another challenge. Since each department maintains its own glossary and acronym repository, initiating the filtering process based on department became a logical initial step.
Wireframes were fun on this one.
The project was initially granted significant leeway and creative freedom. Our objective was to establish a robust skeleton for the hierarchy and content structure, with plans to expand it later. Scalability was a crucial consideration in this context, as being beneficial for just one department wouldn't garner the necessary buy-in from enterprise leadership.
Clickable prototype.
This one was built out in Adobe XD. If you have any issues viewing the embedded version, you can also open it in an external window here.
Testing and Completion
We conducted testing of our flows with a group of six (6) users specifically from the Claims department. The idea was to utilize the feedback provided by the testers to address any issues related to poor engagement and functional failures, making the application more robust as we expanded to other departments. The testing phase was successful and well-received by "non-leadership" employees who found it invaluable for learning, enhancing their confidence in Florida Blue's knowledge. However, while the leadership expressed positivity toward the application itself, budget constraints prevented the project from continuing. The internal nature of the application made the Return on Investment (ROI) more abstract than quantifiable, a common challenge in internal design scenarios.