Oxfam Intranet

International charity organisation

About

Oxfam is a global movement of people who are fighting injustice for a more equal world.

Working across regions in 79 countries, with thousands of partners and allies, the company has a structure wide range of professionals accessing at its intranet for corporate material and network communications.

The problem

Oxfam international has staff spread around the globe, reaching the most remote locations where internet connection isn’t steady and there is a need for the teams to access quickly and efficiently the intranet to find corporate information, forums and news.

Moreover, the intranet visual doesn’t reflect the Oxfam brand and during the years, the personalisation aspect of the website lead to a lot of inconsistency in both content, visual and navigation.

There is a need to define structure and familiar UX, consistent page templates, improving navigation and access to content.

The approach:

Stakeholders interviews

to define objectives and timeline while hearing the staff point of view on current situation

(ej: having trouble accessing quickly to corporate material and reach the contact information of each department, often not up to date)

Users interviews

to test the ux wireframes and content first, and the new UI and new look later, working through iterations.

Usability study

to analyse how users are interacting with current intranet, where do they go to find information and what content they expect to see under each section

Page templates standards

redefining a set of standards for templates to follow in aim to recover consistency and familiarity across the intranet

Accessible content and design

suggesting a text vs images approach to reduce the loading time and improving content accessibility for weak connection areas

One stop for all corporate and contact information within Oxfam organisation

Behaviour profiles:

Contact – I’m looking to find contact details

Community - I’m looking for topics within forums posts

Guides – I’m looking at corporate material to use in my daily work

What is Oxfam Intranet?

Compass, Oxfam's new global intranet is a place for digital collaboration spaces for all of Oxfam's real world communities.

Each community will provide an overview and core information about our work in that area, including strategies, plans, policies, guidelines and key contacts, and spaces for groups working on specific topics to write blogs, highlight new and important issues, and curate and link to collections of useful resources.

As a user, you will also find our new people directory: use this to help you find any and all of your colleagues, understand their role and expertise, and connect with them in the most convenient way.

UX Concepts and testing

  • Testing across international teams

  • Focus on content structure and pages discoverability

  • Testing search functionality expectations

  • Structuring a dedicated people section

  • Implementing consistent people-contact cards across site

  • Defining a strict template for community landing page to improve ux familiarity

Interactive prototype to test content, page templates and discoverability of information

Two rounds of iterations for wireframes testing

Deliverables:

  • New top navigation

  • New mobile menu interaction

  • Login

  • Homepage - dynamic content and customisable

  • Communities landing page

  • Community page

  • A-Z listing page

  • Global search

  • Search results with documents and people tags

  • People directory

  • People profile page

  • Content page

Including a style guide for the client to maintain the site consistent long-term

Improving navigation usability

  • More prominent global search with improved interaction and more familiar pattern

  • Dynamic content for a personalised welcome to returning user

  • Clear top navigation with category links on first level pages

  • Improved interaction and user experience on mobile for both navigation and global search

  • Including a visually strong alert underneath the top nav as a result of users requesting a better positioning for urgent global information (ej Covid updates)

Digital guidance for the team

Supporting the brand and the staff with a mini guide about colours, typography, banners and sections colours plus a full visual list of elements in their desktop and mobile views.

This helps the team to maintain the personalised sections consistent across site and also offers guidance for corporate material and presentations

The result

  • Usability testing confirming content and contact information are easy to find now

  • Staff is happier with new navigation and new colour themed sections (“It’s easier to know where I am”)

  • Users agreeing the new profile page and cards are clearer and make it quicker to get to the contact info

  • Community landing pages are more brand-aligned and trustworthy

  • Search functionality is supporting well the site navigation, users appreciate the new filters and tags

  • Client staff is pleased with the new look of the site, now branded and more corporate looking

Other projects

More projects to come, stay tuned!