Service Design Case Study:
NASA Division Intranet
A Single Source of Truth to Support the Agency's Misson
Project Details
Research Categories: Evaluative
Project Type: Individual, Federal Government Contract
Roles & Contributions: Research Lead, Service Designer, Project Manager
Project Timeline: 8 Weeks
Cross-Functional Team Size: 70
Users Impacted: 700+
Note: Due to the sensitive nature of my work on this project, the visuals on this page are examples meant to highlight my UX process and methodology.
High-Level Research Objectives
Understand the division's organizational structure and cross-functional workflows
Learn best practices for Sharepoint development and data management
Discover the data management and communication needs of employees
Design and evaluate an intranet site and processes for improved workflows
SpaceX Launch for NASA Mission
The Challenge
This large division supports many of NASA's programs and missions, and its employees collaborate with various internal and external partners, resulting in a tremendous amount of communications and data. However, without a single source of truth, employees struggle to stay informed, find updated documents, and push information to agency-level databases. As a result, employees work harder, not smarter.
Problem Statement
Employees need a usable and secure intranet that manages their information to better focus on supporting NASA's scientific missions.
So, how might we design an intranet within organizational constraints that meets the unique needs of multiple user types?
Methods
Project Timeline
As the cross-functional UX specialist, I led research and design activities to develop a new division-wide Sharepoint intranet site. In addition, I was responsible for communicating my findings and progress to stakeholders throughout the process. Below, I highlight the methods I used.
Desk Research
As a newcomer to the agency and Sharepoint development, I had to understand the intricacies of building an intranet on this platform. In addition, the division's decision to utilize Sharepoint Online instead of the typical server-based environment further underscored the need for secondary research as the in-house developers did not have much experience with this version. Finally, I needed to learn best practices regarding data management, file naming conventions, and versioning. As a result, I completed an extensive survey of scholarly and reputable material, including official training documents from Microsoft.
Interviews (User, Stakeholder, Experts)
Cross-functional workflows, combined with external partners (including private industry) and a blend of civil servants and federal contractors, required a new division intranet to meet the needs of multiple user types. The agency had already established these roles, but I needed a better understanding of their unique goals, tasks, and pain points through semi-structured interviews. In addition, I met with seven stakeholders and experts to identify requirements and collaborate on technical challenges.
Stakeholder Analysis & Map
I created a stakeholder map and a power-interest matrix to manage, visually consolidate, and communicate the relationships between the project's multiple constituents. This technique prioritized my communications and efforts as the project lead while ensuring I met all requirements.
Stakeholder Map: Primary and Secondary Stakeholders within the Agency
A Power-Interest Matrix Visualizes the Possible Impact of Stakeholders
Service Blueprints
My research indicated this solution would need to extend beyond the intranet, requiring a more holistic systems approach. With this in mind, I created service blueprints to visualize the relationships between employees, touchpoints, and processes to identify opportunities for optimization.
Service Blueprint Identifies Opportunities for Optimization
Heuristic Evaluation
This project required the new division intranet to harmonize with the public-facing website visually. With this in mind, I performed a heuristic evaluation to understand the visual language and identify usability challenges. This method helped to substantiate my design choices when presenting to stakeholders.
Heuristic Evaluation: The Division’s Public-Facing Site Violates the Visibility of System Status Heuristic and Capitalization Reduces Legibility.
Intranet Design & Prototyping
I used research findings to build the intranet prototype in a staged environment. After mapping out the site architecture, I began working on page layouts and concluded with visual elements and division branding in the high-fidelity version
Service & Process Design
After analyzing the service blueprints for friction points, I designed processes that support the intranet and ensure a better user experience long term. As part of this effort, I developed a naming convention to standardize file names and improve Sharepoint search results. In addition, I crafted training documents to educate employees and serve as a reference.
An Example of Employee Training Materials on Sharepoint File Naming Convention
Feedback Sessions & User Testing
I validated my design assumptions with stakeholder feedback sessions (twice-weekly) and user testing at various stages of fidelity to identify successes and opportunities. I documented feedback using a spreadsheet, allowing me to substantiate changes when speaking to senior stakeholders. These regular evaluations allowed for quick iterations and efficient use of resources.
Key Research Insights
Finding information is a multi-pronged pain point.
I knew it was challenging for employees to find information, but my conversations with employees helped explain the "why." The lack of a single source of truth (SSOT) at a base level meant data, information, and assets were stored, managed, and sometimes duplicated disparately across multiple network drives and folders. DalleMulle and Davenport state in the Harvard Business Review that "Not having an SSOT can lead to chaos," capturing employees' sentiments (2017). The lack of an SSOT also meant a lack of process automation, such as updates to agency-level databases.
In addition, the lack of versioning and file naming conventions made it challenging for employees to identify files. Finally, I uncovered that data access policies were contributing factor, with drive permissions needing to be manually requested. Once granted, these permissions still failed to provide granular levels of access based on roles, prompting the use of individual file password protection: a massive administrative burden with plenty of room for (and examples of) error.
Multiple communication options are also a challenge.
Through my interviews, I discovered a second but related pain point: multiple modes of communication made it more challenging to find information, especially considering the federal government's adoption of remote and hybrid work schedules due to the pandemic. Without the benefit of simply walking over to a colleague's desk, employees used email and Microsoft Teams (message or call). Unfortunately, there was a lack of consistency in how workers got in touch with each other, including when asking for help locating a document. Desk research confirmed this finding, with multiple communication options shown to negatively impact employee focus and mounting evidence suggesting generational preferences (Douglas 2018; Wrike 2018). In addition, security restrictions required the encryption of sensitive but unclassified (SBU) data via email, further complicating communication patterns. Employees frequently reported delays in viewing requests to locate information and also cited instances of requests spanning multiple communication platforms.
Communication Challenges Made Locating Files More Difficult
Prolonged wait times negatively impact efficiency.
Despite the specialization of NASA's directorates, divisions, and project groups, employees are not working in silos, with cross-functional efforts directly or indirectly supporting the agency's scientific missions. Unfortunately, NASA's complex organizational structure can make collaboration difficult. During my interviews, a common theme emerged: employees spent significant time waiting for someone else to help them find documents. In addition, recipients had to stop their own work to search for these files. These wait points were experienced by all employees regardless of their role; even senior division leadership encountered these bottlenecks. Through service blueprinting, I visualized the pervasiveness of this pain point and understood its impact on the division's activities.
Note: For further information on findings and insights, please contact me.
Research Impact
User Impact
It was essential to design and build the Sharepoint intranet to avoid becoming another network drive full of unorganized data, information, and assets that doesn't meet users' needs. I, unfortunately, found examples of this approach when examining intranets from other divisions. By including metadata tagging, versioning, access controls, and process automation, division employees will quickly and easily find what they're looking for without disrupting the others. And as a result, workflows become more efficient, and data becomes more secure. In addition, inherited agency-level permissions and process automation reduce the administrative burden and allow data synchronization between databases. And as a Microsoft product, Sharepoint easily integrates into existing workflows using MS Office and Teams, ensuring easy user adoption.
And although communication remains challenging, making it easier for users to find what they're looking for reduces their reliance on others and is the core of this problem. Therefore, I recommend tackling the communications challenges as a separate (but related) research project.
Organizational Impact
Due to budgetary constraints, the division could not hire a dedicated data management position to oversee the intranet after launch. However, by incorporating controls such as required metadata into the build, the intranet disperses this responsibility to employees while maintaining data integrity. And the design of accompanying training materials ensures employees understand how to format and tag files for long-term management. The modern Sharepoint Online platform provides these improvements cost-effectively and meets the agency's security needs.
The Division Projects Support Agency Missions with Advanced Communication Technologies
Strategic Impact
Removing the administrative burden of information and data management allows division employees to work on more meaningful tasks that directly support NASA's missions, including playing a pivotal role in the upcoming Artemis Space Program.
Reflections & Learnings
Taking the time for a stakeholder analysis is valuable, especially in large organizations where it can be challenging to prioritize project communications and updates.
This project taught me much about data management and information architecture, which also apply outside the Sharepoint environment.
I translated my retail experience into service design for this project, allowing me to use a systems approach to identify bottlenecks and prioritize areas of opportunity.