Balancing stakeholder and user needs in corporate webpage
Project Lead
Role: Research Lead
Background
Ad Hoc is a start-up with a focus on client-based work. As a result, the main website (adhocteam.us) was developed over time and without a clear focus. In early 2018, Ad Hoc decided to reassess the overall IA of the site to better fit the company's needs for the website and for the user base they hoped to attract. I acted as the team lead on this project and mentored a research associate on her first project. This project represented Ad Hoc's first site audit and first internal user research exercise. Due to the lack of intentionality within which the website evolved, we need to crystallize our metrics for success for the website and validate how well the current website is doing against these metrics. This led us to the following questions and structured our approach to focus on baseline research.
Research Questions
Who are the intended user groups and what are the major purposes of the Ad Hoc website
What impressions do we want users to have and actions we are hoping they will take as a result of visiting our website?
How well does the current website match up to our intended purposes, users and actions outlined above?
Approach
The research methodology composed of three activities. To answer questions 1 & 2, we conducted five stakeholder interviews with members of the executive leadership team. This allowed us to prioritize user groups and main purposes of the website. We then conducted a site-audit to answer question 3. This audit included both an analysis of the site's IA by our team, in addition to interviews with individuals from our targeted user group. Not only did these interviews validate our findings from the site audit, but it also allowed us to better understand users' order of operations. We wanted to understand when intended users visit the website and when they might take the actions we hope they will take.
Findings
Main user groups and actions:
Attract new business from potential clients
Attract new potential industry partners who want to work with us
Attract potential new talent
Potential clients and industry partners visit Ad Hoc website after hearing about the company's reputation. They enter looking for specific information in "government contractor speak." This information either did not exist or was unsearchable within the blog. Additionally, the blog has a very informal tone and thus does not convey legitimacy about the teams' delivery track record to these users.
Stakeholders hoped that the website would act as a funnel to get talent to apply. However, the biggest hinderance in attracting new talent was a lack of clear communication channels after the application has been put in, not an issue with the website.
Impact
Gained stakeholder buy-in on the importance of reshaping website to meet the needs of business development.
Insight on the information needs of clients and partners has led to plans to "professionalize" the site for these users and has armed business development with new tools for talking to clients and showcasing the team's work.
Plan to standardize recruitment practices and include of more up-to-date information on the hiring process on the website.
Creation of collection pages to better surface necessary information and expertise to potential partners and clients outside the blog (in development).