This is a case study describing how we moved an intranet that was not working for its employees into a successful website. The objectives were to "lead with the need,' to determine how current employees want their information organized and what should be emphasized first. Our goals were to redesign the intranet site, focusing on the navigation and organization (overall information architecture); make the site usable; especially when it comes to finding things; and to make the site attractive and understandable to employees. A card sort seemed the best solution because we had 2 sites that needed to be unified and that had grown too small for the additional information that kept getting added year in and year out. We had an IA that wasn’t working, and we wanted to discover how employees – the principal users of the site – wanted their information organized. We chose a open card sort because we wanted participants to tell us how they wanted the main categories of the site named (as opposed to us naming the categories for them).

1. From Card Sort to Redesigned Intranet:
A Success Story
Elke Oberg, Electronic Marketing Coordinator, Measured Progress
Bob Thomas, Manager of User Experience, Liberty Mutual
Katelyn Thompson, Usability Analyst, Staples
June 9, 2010

2. Scope, Objectives, and Goals
Company Mission
“Our mission is to improve teaching and learning by providing
customized assessment products and educational services.”
Objective
Make it easier for Measured Progress employees to find
information on the intranet, i.e., to “lead with the need.”
Measured Progress, a not-for-
profit located in Dover, NH, is
a leading developer of
educational testing and
assessment programs

3. Home HR Policies & Procedures
The goal was to unite the separate Insite and HR Policies and Procedures sites, each
created with different software applications.
Participants commented they would like to use Search and Site Map features. These
were available only on the home page.

4. “You’d think the [Accident and Injury Report] form is under InForm.”
InService > HR > Policy Guide > General Administration > Operational Policies > Safety > Accident Reporting and
Investigation Plan > [Text… Scroll Down Page] … Accident Report Form (7 clicks)
“A person could bleed to death before the form is even located!”
InService InForm

5. Original Navigational Hierarchy
Insite:
broad and shallow
Job Request Form:
InForm > Job Request Forms > Form (2 clicks)
Safety Form:
InService > HR > Policy Guide > General Administration >
Operational Policies > Safety > Accident Reporting and
Investigation Plan > [Text] … Accident Report Form (7 clicks)
HR Policies and Procedures:
narrow and deep

6. Original Navigational Hierarchy
I always disliked the confusing, supposedly clever navigation
scheme on the old site. It was a guessing game to find content. I
never remembered what was where and always had to start the
hunt all over.
—Mary, Measured Progress Employee

7. Card Sorts
“Card sorting is excellent for situations where you want the
users’ mental model to drive the information architecture of the
product.”
—Courage & Baxter (2005), “Understanding Your Users”
“Open sorts are used for discovery. Closed sorts are used for
validation.”
—Rosenfeld & Morville (2006), “Information Architecture for the
World Wide Web”

8. Card Sorts
Users
 Recruited users who had used the intranet site for a long
time, as well as new hires
Methodology
 Open card sort
Analysis
 More information to sift through with open card sorts
 Dendrograms to see common groupings

9. Methodology for the Card Sort
 Created and ran an open
card sort with 15
Measured Progress
employees, including
follow-up interviews
 Analyzed quantitative
and qualitative data
 Made recommendations
for a new navigational
hierarchy and structure

10. Open Card Sort
# Card name
1 Corporate Graphics
2 Floor Plans
3 Facilities and Locations
4 Contacts
5 Employee Directory
6 Corporate Travel
7 Glossary and Acronyms
8 Mission and Philosophy
9 Safety
10 Reimbursement
11 Payroll
12 Purchasing and Requisitions
13 Workplace Policies
14 Hiring and Employment
15 Benefits
16 Work Schedules
17 Personnel Records
18 Shipping and Distribution
19 Printing and Copying
20 Helpdesk
21 Forms
22 Computer and Networks
23 Corporate Marketing and Branding
24 Information Technology
25 Phone and Conferencing
26 Contracts
27 Wellness Programs
28 Diversity
29 In/Out Board
30 News and Announcements
31 Photo Gallery
32 Corporate Events
33 Department Sites
34 For New Employees
35 Workplace Conduct
36 Recognition and Accomplishments

11. Participant Demographics
 All 15 participants had experience using Insite.
 Participants from 9 different departments
 4 men and 11 women
P# Gender Department Used Insite?
0-5 6-10 IE Firefox Word processing Emailing Web Browsing
1 F Testing Services Y x x x x x
2 F Human Resources Y x x x x
3 M Client Services Y x x x x x
4 F Human Resources Y x x x x x
5 F Testing Services Y x x x x x
6 F Office of Technology Y x x x x x
7 F Finance Y x x x x x
8 M Testing Services Y x x x x x
9 F Client Services Y x x x x x
10 F Operational Services Y x x x x x
11 M Scoring Y x x x x x
12 F Process Coordination Y x x x x x
13 F Marketing Y x x x x x
14 F Client Services Y x x x x x
15 M Marketing Y x x x x x
Hours Per Week Web Browser for Insite? What Do You Do on a Computer?

12. Sample Open Card Sort Results:
Major Navigation Categories
 WHAT I WANT TO USE
 Home page
 Contracts
 Forms
 WHAT I WANT TO REFER TO
 Department sites
 Employee directory
 Working at Measured Progress
 Helpdesk

13. Analysis of Results
We began to see trends after five card sorts on the first day.
Main categories among first five participants

14. Analysis of Results
We started with 106 original categories from all 15 participants,
and applied consistent naming conventions.
Standardized categories derived from original categories

15. Analysis of Results
Second, we combined similar standardized categories and
arrived at a total of 13 standardized categories.
Final list of 13 standardized categories
0.67

16. Dendrograph
(Tree Diagram)
Trying to see how
frequently participants
put two cards together
in the same group

17. Analysis of Results
Mapping the dendrogram groupings to primary and secondary
navigation areas

18. Analysis of Results
“Mental image the user forms to understand how software
works and how to operate it”
—Arnowitz et al (2007), “Effective Prototyping for Software
Makers”
In the case of Insite, many participants in our card sorts could
not express a mental model of the website beyond the use of
“In” headings. But many did express their mental model of the
ideal Measured Progress intranet:
“There’s stuff there that people need to do their jobs. They need
a reference library for working at the company . . . a big
bookshelf of benefits and other [information].”

19. Analysis of Results
 Use a navigation hierarchy of medium depth and breadth
Use a primary navigation hierarchy of no more than 8 or 9
categories
Go 3 or 4 levels deep
 Put search at the top of every page
 Put site map link on every page

20. Recommendations

21. Design of the New Site

22. Where I Didn’t Listen to Bob
 Three-column
design on
second-level
pages
 Third-level
sub-navigation
 Home on main
navigation bar
 Search at top
right of page

23. Employees’ Reactions
. . . terrific and very user-friendly. And it’s easy on the eyes!
—Denise
. . . navigation makes so much more sense. If I need to look at an
HR policy or find the manager of a particular contract, it’s just a
couple of clicks away. You can view company newsletters from
2001, as well as articles about what the future might hold for our
industry—it’s all there. —Laura
. . . now they are grouped and organized in a logical way. Another
great improvement is the search feature. If I need to find anything,
I can type it in! —Heather
Being able to find what I need through multiple channel makes
Insite easy to use. —Paul

24. The Departments Section

25. The Human Resources Section

26. The Human Resources Section

27. The New Help Section

28. The New Help Section

29. What We Kept
 Quick access to the Employee Directory, the section
employees use the most
 Corporate colors
 Anything that humanizes the user experience:
Photo of the week
Kids’ art
Photo gallery

30. Content Management System

31. Conclusions
Card sort was a success because:
 We involved key stakeholders from the start who clearly saw
the benefits of the corporate intranet and wanted to improve
the site for employees.
 We recruited participants from all areas of the company.
 We were able to understand employees’ mental models (“a
reference library,” “a bookshelf”).
 We discovered how employees wanted items grouped
together and what labels made the most sense to them.
The bottom line:
Measured Progress employees created the IA for their intranet.

32. Conclusions
Redesign of the site was a success because:
 We chose simplicity over cuteness (the “In” metaphor).
 We unified two separate sites (Insite, HR Policies and
Procedures) that were created with two different
applications.
 We built out a navigational hierarchy that replaced a broad
and shallow architecture (10 categories, 1-2 levels deep) with
an architecture of medium depth and breadth (7 categories,
3-4 levels deep).
The bottom line:
Employees can find what they need easily and quickly.

33. Thank You
Questions?
Elke Oberg, Electronic Marketing Coordinator, Measured Progress
oberg.elke@measuredprogress.org
Bob Thomas, Manager of User Experience, Liberty Mutual
robertl.thomas@libertymutual.com