Sharepoint Redesign with collaborative input and design thinking – Rocket Central
Information Architecture & Collaborative Design
The Product Strategy group at Rocket Central is composed of design, technology, operations, and research teams. The SharePoint site serves as a central hub for internal resources, providing team members with access to career training, job-oriented content, and research materials for new product initiatives.
The site’s redesign was a collaborative effort involving a diverse team: a UX writer, Information Architect, UX researcher, operations specialists, and a few interns. Prior to the redesign, the site was disorganized, typical of an intranet that had grown organically over time with content added and managed inconsistently. Our goal was to review, reorganize, and streamline the content, cutting out unnecessary information while creating a more visually appealing and functional tool.
My first task was to conduct a heuristic evaluation and create a site map of all content and links. The resulting map was large and overwhelming, filled with redundant information, broken links, and no clear structure. I created this site map using LucidChart, ensuring it was accessible to all team members.
Next, I took screenshots of each page and organized them into breakout boards based on the original site map for context. This allowed the team to easily identify which content should remain and which should be discarded. Each screenshot was categorized and displayed in its relevant section. These visuals served as a map for the editing process, where team members could add sticky notes, draw connections between screens, and circle key content. We also involved Subject Matter Experts to help prioritize which content was most important.
With input from the team, I synthesized the research findings and feedback into a workable site map. This map became the blueprint for the interns to update the site. Additionally, it included questions and considerations for future updates and iterations.
The original site map was created to identify all the content on the site, along with the links between pages and files. However, the result was a large, overwhelming map filled with scattered links, redundant information, broken links, and no clear structure or purpose. I created the site map in a LucidChart board to ensure it was accessible to all team members.
This is a sample of one of the Lucid breakout boards with screenshots, annotated and marked up by team members. On the left side of the board, I included the relevant section of the original site map to provide context.
This site plan uses sticky notes in Lucid to outline the pages and their hierarchy. It served as a sufficient schematic for the interns to begin editing the site, aligning it with the architecture I developed from the collected research. The board also includes questions for future iterations of the site.
Ux & Product Design, Information Architecture, Interaction Design