Redesigning a Knowledge Management System for Usability

Usability and Information Architecture

From the start of the project, we relied on this list of the essential UX design goals that would drive our navigation structure:

• Manage navigation levels and complexity using mega drop-down menus, secondary navigation on the left, breadcrumbs, and sub-site titles, as well as the consistency of the information architecture across the site, as appropriate.
• Test navigation options and page layouts with users to ensure that they can find important features and site areas and have a strong sense of where they are in Deloitte Resources.
• Create a visual mechanism for drawing attention to and prioritizing top-level tools that need to be prominent and visible on every page—such as My Profile and My Links.
• Ensure that the search functionality is easy to find and the search options a user needs in different areas of the site are immediately available. Make sure the search features are prominent and easy to use.

The new platform structure of our site collection let us determine what channels we should list in the primary navigation, then create common secondary navigation for service-area sites, giving users a consistent user experience when searching for information. Our navigation model displayed the primary, topic-based navigation at the top of the page, as shown in Figure 1; the secondary, task-based navigation at the left of the page, as shown in Figure 2. This provided a familiar user experience, as well as additional navigation for users searching for task-related items once on the site.

The 950-pixel width of the central zone of our previous design, shown in Figure 3, got reduced to the new Zone 2, with a width of 550 pixels, as shown in Figure 4. While our new page layout provided less room for displaying content, we were able to create resource pages—which were accessible from the secondary navigation and shared at the parent level for all child pages—as well as custom content types and list templates for storing information. The new page layouts used the list Web components and front-end XSL to dynamically display content.

We vetted the UX designs for our custom list templates that used XSL by conducting surveys through both email and a remote usability testing tool. These designs were favorably received by users, so we were able to defend our designs with data from our usability studies and were ready to present our new proof of concept to the leadership.

Usability Testing and Audience Analysis

Once we had populated our proof-of-concept navigation and sites with data in a staging area, we conducted a usability study to measure the KX’s current state and provide a baseline from which we could work. We conducted and recorded one-on-one interviews to measure user satisfaction and expectation levels when accessing the KX for knowledge.

Using the System Usability Scale (SUS), shown in Figure 5, we were able to obtain a global view of users’ subjective assessments of usability—from both qualitative and self-reported data.

The SUS score was 67.5/100, putting it in the marginally high range for usability measurements. We identified very few issues that would negatively impact user satisfaction, efficiency, or understanding of the tool. It was this data that helped us in our future UX design work.

We used card sorting, tree tests, and heatmapping tools to design our surveys for online usability testing and recorded our remote usability testing. The card-sorting and tree-testing tools provided information for our navigation design, and the heatmaps helped to provide the validation that we needed to defend the usability of the site and page structure. We received a 73% response rate to our email heatmap survey links and found that users were more responsive (90%) when we asked them to participate in a one-on-one interview.

Card sorting helped us to identify how well our global taxonomy resonated with users. The KX supports many professional disciplines, and there were many examples of labels that users might associate with any given item. The data that we extracted from these surveys helped us to revisit the labeling in the current navigation and further refine the language for our new navigational labeling.

Tree testing helped us to understand the logical order in which users would group together items, as well as to evaluate how our current navigational structure needed to change—both for users and for our new architecture. Because our new design made more pages accessible from the secondary navigation for sites, we needed to be consistent in our use of language and match our taxonomy, so users would know exactly what they would find on any given page.

During all usability studies, we were able to extract much information through both pre- and post-survey questionnaires. Pre-survey questionnaires helped us to identify participant demographics, while open-ended, post-survey questionnaires let participants further elaborate on their preferences for navigation and page designs. These questionnaires helped us to elicit much of the information about what users liked—or in more cases, didn’t like—about the current platform and what they hoped that we would fix in the new environment. It’s amazing what you can find out from people when you give them a chance to voice their opinions about a tool that you’re designing to help them to do their jobs.

Defending Your Designs

Once we were armed with the data and our analyses of the usability testing and best-practices research, we began our meetings with stakeholders. Anyone who has participated in a stakeholders meeting knows that everyone has opinions and thinks he or she understands good Web design and the tenets of usability.

While our navigation and page-layout designs went through several iterations before they became final, they stayed fairly true to the data that we’d elicited from our usability testing. Prior to going into stakeholder meetings, it’s important to be prepared to defend anything that you’re recommending in the way of navigation and page design. The data that you bring to the table is of the utmost importance. I’ve learned that people respond well to documented research on best practices that supports your usability analysis.

The Importance of Standards

Never underestimate the power of a well-written standards document, which you can use in defending your designs. Standards provide design guidance and show the reasons behind how you’ve derived a design. Most importantly, they demonstrate why you can’t and shouldn’t support designs that are inconsistent with standards.

Standards documents are relatively easy to create. I found myself keeping notes and making lists of the pixel widths of Web components, what Web components could go into what zones on a page, what information belonged in what Web components, what links belonged in the secondary navigation and the quick links Web component on the right side of pages, and whether a link to a page should open it in a new window if it isn’t part of the parent site. In retrospect, we had many long, opinion-fueled conversations to determine how to redesign the KX. The end goal and primary purpose of a standards document was to help us to maintain consistency and defend our designs—throughout the lifecycle of the KX and as long as the KX was providing a service to the users.

Conclusion

After roughly a year and a half of planning, designing, developing, and testing, we completed our migration of the redesigned KX to the new platform. As part of this project, we scheduled monthly Webinars for stakeholders to apprise them of the development effort and our timeline to go-live. We created and conducted training sessions for the offshore developers who would build and support the new designs. We held numerous review meetings with stakeholders to get their feedback on the new sites, then further refine the content that appeared on the pages. They received our new UX design favorably.

As technology changes the way we work, migrations to new and better platforms present prime opportunities to reevaluate the way we work and how we provide information to our users. Before embarking on a large-scale migration, it’s important to evaluate how users access information and whether the current design is adequate or needs improvement. Building on a new platform encourages such redesign efforts. Through careful planning, using the objective data that you obtain from testing new designs, and incorporating user feedback, you can create a redesigned knowledge management system that will win over clients while ultimately improving their user experience.