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Chevron
Knowledge Management & Intranet Refresh
Problem Overview
Starting in July of 2018, my employer, Limina UX, won a contract working with the Law Department of Chevron oil. Where most companies need new tech to solve business problems, Chevron Law was inundated with tech, and needed our UX consultancy to make sense of what they had, pare down where needed, and overhaul their existing intranet so it could serve as a knowledge management tool. They used over 100 different applications and systems, had no centralized library of documents, and their site-wide search function was more of an encumbrance than a useful aid. With over 1000 employees distributed across the globe, it was our task to identify the needs of not only their attorneys, but also their support staff in order to deliver a solution that would ease their technological struggles, especially for the more senior staff.
The Goal
The new law intranet is a centralized access point for all legal knowledge, tools, and training used by Chevron Law staff. It provides access to everything the legal staff needs to do their jobs, and helps them find it faster. Due to the confidential nature of many contracts and legal matters, much of the content is protected, and yet others without viewing access can be informed of the existence of certain items so they can go to the document owner for guidance on related matters (thus reducing duplicative work).
Process
- User research (remote contextual inquiry)
- Business analysis
- Presenting findings
- Discovery workshops
- Requirements identification and prioritization
- Prototyping
- Analysis of existing information architecture
- Interaction modeling
- Content strategy
- Writing content outlines per each page
- Wireframing
- User/stakeholder reviews and acceptance
- Applying visual design style guide to wireframes
- User testing
- Quality assurance testing
My Role
I played many roles on this project. First, I was one of two UX designers selected from the team to travel to Chevron HQ to represent the team in the project kickoff meeting, where we established the goals and objectives for our user research and worked with Chevron representatives to choose research participants. I then facilitated as well as assisted in over half the user interviews, sometimes leading, sometimes taking point on notes — I was lauded by both of my bosses for my rapid and thorough note taking, and for my natural talent for leading interviews.
We scheduled a total of 34 user interviews, with a healthy ratio of race and sex compared with the company's demographics. Our users spanned 11 countries, which meant sometimes holding interviews at 6am and 11pm our time in order to talk to people in Australia and Singapore. The interview format was remote contextual inquiry, gathering primarily qualitative data.
User Research
I participated in 20 of the 34 user interviews, and took charge on extracting data from the interviews and analyzing it, including a content matrix heat-mapped so the most frequently used data was at the top of the list.
Following user research, I was one of three primary business analysts extracting qualitative data from the interviews, making sense of the data in spreadsheets I drafted, and pulling conclusions into a deck presented to client stakeholders. I helped create an 80-page presentation of our user research findings, specifically building the sections on demographics, training, software and hardware usage, search vs navigation, and took charge on defining and visualizing the user personas and the user behavior typology chart. I carefully reviewed the presentation for spelling and grammar — including checking acronyms and reviewing the use of Council vs Counsel, which spell check can't catch. I helped present this in three different sessions to more than 50 IT managers and legal staff, plus answered questions along the way.
Data Analysis and Visualization
After the data was analyzed, I helped consolidate it into a presentation for the project stakeholders (our Core team), the project sponsor group, and their IT Manager.
My business analysis did not stop there. Following the user research, I helped facilitate eight discovery workshops on site in both the San Ramon HQ and Houston offices, including functional requirements and user experience workshops. My role in these workshops was to document everything, ask questions when I felt there were gaps in the information, and identify functional requirements from our gatherings. I then worked with the UX Lead and Technical Lead to assign initial prioritization based on what I heard from the user research while also giving guidance on business priority. This prioritization led to our definition of the MVP.
User Persona Profiling
An example of one of the persona profiles I created, focused on who they are, what roles they fill, what tasks they typically do, what systems and content they use most, and what opportunities there were to improve their day-to-day life.
Presenting Findings
A slide from the user research presentation, which presented qualitative user research in facts and figures that were easy to understand, as well as observations and opportunities for change.
User Persona Behavior Typology
I defined persona archetypes and identified which users fell into which persona group, then mapped the behaviors of different personas into this behavior typology to highlight where personas differed in their needs and desires.
Following the business analysis phase, I jumped into interaction design, prototyping a home page, a directory, a person profile, and an application profile for our initial prototype (three of the six sections). We presented our prototype for approval by the sponsor group in late January, and since then I have continued the interaction design process — interaction modeling for navigation, search, and categorization for the more complex areas of the site, drafting content outlines for all pages, and wireframing each page. I have also provided support to the UX Lead and Project Manager in organizing design documentation and page specifications.
Role Based Access Modeling
I led the interaction modeling effort. This graphic explained how much of the content would be protected for only certain audiences, and how users would not be bogged down by content they would not be able to access.
Competitive Analysis
I performed a competitive analysis on what information is typically displayed in an attorney profile, looking at the top 10 law firms in the country and documenting which metadata displayed in a list item versus the full profile page.
Proof-of-Concept Wireframe
I created a proof-of-concept prototype, which proved the future solution could meet the needs expressed in prior stages of research. Upon approval, I began a detailed design phase including interaction modeling, wireframing, and visual design.
Information Architecture
I modeled out the information architecture for the site and used it to identify what page layouts would be needed, assigning page layouts to each page in the IA.
Design System
As the primary interaction designer on the team, I set up a database to hold all design system files and technical specifications for each page identified in the information architecture, grouped by navigation area, sorted by IA area and page ID, with fields such as objectives, audience, activities, content outline, and features/functions.
Wireframing with Design System Components
As I created wireframes, I included all of the needed design system components in a library within Sketch and Abstract, each stripped of style. Once the design moved to high fidelity, the visual designer could redesign each component and simply switch which component is used in the page — individual list items wouldn't need to be touched, but the revised style would cascade to all items in the list.
In all, I traveled to Chevron at least 8 times in 6 months and was often the first choice selected by the UX Lead/CEO when we only needed one designer present. She knew she could trust me to be on time for every flight, easy to travel with, a good representative of our design staff, and extremely efficient when on site. I also have a great working relationship with the Technical Lead because I am a more technically minded designer than most.
Challenges
- Creating a system that works for both attorneys and support staff, and for both folks very comfortable with technology and for those who are not at all
- Not breaking what they already have and love
- Organizing the huge amounts of systems and content they already have
- Getting people from different regions and business units to align to the same practices, and sometimes adopt new processes
- Introducing a new look and feel, and making it more modern, yet still aligning with their style guide and corporate values (imagery has proven to be very difficult to choose)
- Finding ways to improve internal collaboration and communication and convincing leadership of the value of certain new practices
- Always returning back to the user research to ensure the solution met the needs of the users