NBCU
A new global communication platform for NBCUniversal's 45k staff.
Launched in 2017, the multifunctional platform known as NBCU Now was created as an internal professional network connecting all NBCUniversal businesses and employees with customizable news updates, shareable resources and employee profiles.
5 Months
Completed at Carrot Creative
Responsive intranet
MY ROLE
While working as Carrot Creative’s UX Manager I led research and design of the next generation of NBCU's corporate communication platform and intranet. As the project leader I was also responsible for both client and project management throughout the 5 month engagement. The team I oversaw included a senior UX designer, technical director, art director and UI designer. Development of the project was handled by the client.
Primary deliverables for which I was responsible included:
Project planning and scoping.
Content audit
Information architecture
Literature review
User interviews
User personas
User stories
Wireframes
Prototype development
User testing
Art direction (oversight)
QA (oversight)
Challenge
With 40+ companies and 45,000 staff, fostering a sense of community had always been a challenge for NBCU.
The company’s existing internal communication platform, MyNBC, was introduced in 2004 with the aim of connecting staff with the latest company news and resources.
With upwards of 500 calls being made to the NBCU employee support line each day though, it became clear the current platform needed a major rethink.
Universal objectives, defined during a preliminary stakeholder workshop included:
Build/support NBCU culture.
Provide employees with information they need to do their jobs; support their roles and make them more self sufficient.
Develop a modern and flexible design system.
Build for future growth and needs.
APPROACH
In an effort to provide balance and breathing room we divided all work into two streams: information architecture (IA) and design.
Each stream was broken into 4 different phases:
DISCOVERY
With analytical data of the existing platform unavailable our team turned to qualitative research, interviewing new and old employees from the United States, London, Japan and Australia.
While our original expectation was there would be a hugely diverse set of needs for each business we quickly learned there were actually more commonalities than differences. Employees of all offices could be identified using 3 characteristics:
Employment lifecycle: orientation (1st month), established (2-6 months), advancement (>6 months)
Environment: desk, on set, on the road
Location: country, city, building
These insights allowed us to construct 8 user personas each representing a unique NBCU employee archetype that were used as the framework of a design studio that I facilitated in NBCUniversal’s NY offices.
With personas in hand we were able to define 6 focal needs for feature development. The focal needs were:
Search: ability to quickly and effectively identify resources or staff profiles from a single tool.
Content: up-to-date, reliable, useful content presented in a logical, easy-to-adopt user interface (UI).
Mobility: all content available at all times regardless of an employees location.
Employee directory: A reliable employee directory with all employees’ core information was seen as good for productivity as well as culture.
Personalization: On a business and individual level.
Social: Treating the employee directory as an internal working network.
Focal NEEDS
One of biggest challenges we faced in this project was the development of a navigation system. With 26k+ pieces of content and more added each day our task was create a navigation system that was intuitive to employees from all locations.
Over a three week period we conducted a content audit and multiple card sorting workshops with senior stakeholders and regional staff.
The audit clearly proved what the team already knew, that the existing navigation was highly confusing, so much so that some employee groups had resorted to creating link spreadsheets to find items they needed (clearly a very, very bad sign).
By using card sorting exercises we quickly aligned stakeholders on the problems of the current system and the advantages of a new approach.
Information
architecture
In an effort to focus teams and reduce the amount of feedback needed during each review cycle we divided design into 5 sprints. Pressed for time and awaiting style guide approval, each sprint lasted between 3-5 days with a focus on features rather than highly polished UI.
Sprint process:
Day 1 - Stakeholder design studio.
Day 2 - Alignment on concept and design approach.
Day 3 - Development of medium fidelity wireframes and prototype building (mobile + desktop).
Day 4 - User testing.
Day 5 - Feedback and adjustments.
Post approval - UI styling applied.
Sprint groups:
Search and navigation
Homepage experience
Employee directory
Editorial and content pages
Business directory, my perks, events calendar
At the conclusion of each sprint newly approved designs were documented in the form of a functional spec that was delivered to the development team so that implementation could begin. Each wireframe was presented as both a mobile and desktop layout with storyboards used to demonstrate processes.
Design
SPRINTS
Stakeholder brainstorm sessions allowed us to quickly align on feature requirements.
A functional spec was created for development hand off.
We used personas to isolate the functional needs that would satisfy each user group.
The functional spec included storyboards of each process.
Intended to be the company’s first true internal communication network, our approach for the new platform was to balance utility with a fresh and modern aesthetic that balanced efficiency with moments of fun.
The EXPERIENCE
A reason to connect DAILY
The Dashboard is a company wide daily news feed that can be customized by employees and businesses to deliver contextually relevant information.
Intuitive search
We made locating content easier and more fun by compartmentalizing content and introducing predictive and suggestive search results.
Scalable navigation architecture
We laid the foundation for future growth by architecting a category and tagging matrix that users understood. Not a small task when considering the growing platform currently supports 65k unique items.
responsive design system
We designed multi-purpose content templates that made the platform more intuitive and reduced costs for future growth.
A Connected community
We connected all businesses under one roof, for the first time, through an employee directory.
A unique identity
Personal profile pages provide each employee with a space of their own. Connected to all other staff through the employee directory they can personalize their details to include social handles and support group affiliations.
Engagement with platform up by 657% in first 6 months.
50% reduction of calls to NBCUniversal’s support center.
1k Avg weekly interactions with employee directory (globally).
Results
On
reflection
Like any project with a finite timeline the desire to evolve the work we had created was felt heavily after our final hand-off. When knew when emerging from the discovery phase that it would be a challenge to get all proposed features created which we had hoped to create post launch (co-branding and support center live chat included).
While also being satisfied with the final design aesthetic there were definitely learnings from the way we pitched our design concepts (including reducing the number of options presented).