PROJECTS / CASE STUDIES

Case Study 3: Migrating Content and Intranet Redesign

Client

International retail company — $3 billion annual sales

Situation

Intranet users were struggling to find what they needed. This was especially problematic as users were scattered throughout the U.S., and the Intranet was one of the corporate office's primary methods for communication and contact with field employees. In fact, the Intranet was important as a distribution channel for business guidelines, news updates, sales and marketing resources, reference and other field support materials. In frustration, field employees were resorting to phone calls to find what was needed. They complained about poor organization of content on the site, frequent absence of meaningful landmarks and navigation throughout the Intranet, inconsistency of labeling conventions, and an inability to perform a successful site search. Corporate business managers needed an immediate solution to the site's confusion and disorganization.

Project Approach

PageSolutions stressed the importance of addressing the content on the site, rather than limiting attention to the need for improved HTML design (interface) and navigation. This was consistent with the client's long term needs for content that would be "ready" for eventual management by formal CMS and/or portal tools. The intial scope of the project was thus expanded to include a joint effort between PageSolutions and internal resources to include content rework without increasing the project budget. Content analysis included an extensive review of existing site content as well as interviews with key managers and content contributers. PageSolutions then site design, high-level information architecture, guidelines for preparing and presenting different content types, and delivery of final templates with instructions for page and navigational build-out by internal staff. Tools and guidelines were provided for evaluating, editing, and tracking all content targeted for migration — to be completed by staff prior to site build-out.

Deliverables*

• Initial findings, with recommendations for increasing project focus on content to be kept and managed on the redesigned Intranet site. See -> Initial Project Findings and Recommendations ( 76 kb ).
• Site design (presented as HTML prototype) and site architecture for the new Intranet site. High-level information architecture included HTML pages leading to end-documents comprised of PDF and varying Office flavors. See -> Proposed Intranet Architecture ( 84 kb).
• A strategic tool for systematically evaluating existing content and preparing it for migration to the new site (e.g., kill, keep, edit, break into smaller pieces, change to HTML or other document type) was delivered in ready-to-use format. See -> Content Preparation for Migration ( 43 kb).
• HTML templates and all supporting files (i.e., CSS, JS) for build-out site by internal staff, once content was finalized for migration to the new Intranet site.
• Followup consultation regarding the relationship between document management, Web content managment, and portal technologies.

Results

Intranet site was launched to rave reviews from field employees about its attractiveness and organizatio of content. Client stated that process of evaluation, preparing, and migrating content to the new Intranet site per the migration process/tool provided was painful but "highly effective." They are looking forward to the next step of utilizing 3rd party CMS tools.

* Deliverables have been "cleansed" of identifying information to retain anonymity of client.

Note: Project was completed by a PageSolutions "virtual team."