Summary
We got a directive to redesign Sharepoint to make it easier for users. One of the major flaws we discovered about the present design was the presence of unnecessary buttons and icons. We decided to use the card sorting method to carry out a survey. We would use this to deduce what people want to view on the dashboard whenever they log in. We decided to conduct the card sort test with a total of 100 cards using 5 participants per department as the metric to measure.
SharePoint
Sharepoint is an internal platform for employees of Interswitch Group, it helps us make a request for items, lodge complaints and manage other internal activities.
At Interswitch Group, we have over 100 employees, so designing a platform that could accommodate the difference of every individual and department seemed complex but with our qualitative research method, we were able to make design decisions that effectively cut a-crossed every one needs, keeping usability and accessibility as our top priority
Test Objective
The aim of the card sorting was to ascertain what people were really interested in seeing on their dashboard to eliminate unnecessary activities on the dashboard as well as ease of access to what each person used frequently.
Limitations
Sharepoint runs on a limited technology, as such, there were great restrictions to the kind of design implementations we wanted to achieve. However, we leveraged on these limitations to design well accessibly dashboards to employees, thereby reducing complaints by a whopping 96%.
Participants
We had scheduled a short meet up with 5 people from each department.
The total number of individuals we attempted to engage in the card sort was 100 individuals spread over 7 departments
The total number of people who eventually obliged our request were 50
Methodology
We decided to carry out an Open card sorting. The first thing we did was write down all the items on the current dashboard. There were about 20 of them, thus we had each of them written down on 5 different small cards totaling 100 cards. Each individual was expected to go through the cards separated into two groups: what was relevant and not relevant.
We took records from each participant session.
Next, we inputted results in a google sheet and sorted with an average of 5. Google data Studio helped us with the visualizations for easy reporting.
Lessons
We noticed participants made decisions based on what was important to them and their work activities, irrespective of other departments.
Participants didn’t know what many of the items on the dashboard meant, We observed that look of confusion and disparity on participants faces. They had to click through and take their time to read before getting things correctly.
The content was a huge problem for participants. There was little communication on many of the individual items placed on the dashboard. these items also had little explanations or non-relatable explanations. there was lit of mismatch
“I have been looking for the company template, I didn't know I could find it under documents” — Blessing(Operations Department)
Our Solutions
Lo-fi Wireframes
