Project story
A2Dominion
Over 4 months, we:
- Created the content strategy for a new company-wide intranet
- Activated an insight panel to foreground employee voice and user needs
- Mapped out a new information architecture based on top tasks
- Developed an intranet content style guide and worked with key teams to apply guidance to new sections
The tools you created and principles you laid down have been invaluable for us. They’ve become very much part of how we do things, and we’re even using them now for other platforms like our service desks. I learnt so much from what you did – I can’t thank you enough.
Victoria Burrows
Internal communications manager
I wanted to involve Enough Said at the start to make sure the new intranet was built on solid content strategy and information architecture foundations. And that’s exactly what happened. I was so impressed with your knowledge and skills – and how you worked with people from around the organisation to shape our new intranet. You really do know what you’re doing – and it shows.Gema Vicente Digital product manager
The challenge
London housing association A2Dominion’s intranet was on its last legs. This was no secret – most employees agreed that it was unloved and underused. So the news that Microsoft was shelving the underlying platform was a much-needed call to action. But it’s no small feat to seamlessly replace an intranet serving around 1400 people. We were brought in to create a strong content strategy and information architecture that the internal team and new platform provider could rely on to launch a successful new intranet.
The work
After absorbing everything we could about employees’ unmet needs from existing documentation and previous consultations, we spoke to key stakeholders and ran a content strategy workshop with reps from across the organisation through our newly formed Insight Panel. A qualitative audit of 130 key pages rounded out the picture. We then identified top intranet tasks through an all-employee poll and ran a card sorting exercise involving 35 people. From the results of this, we shaped a new and simplified site structure and did several rounds of tree testing with volunteers to refine our thinking.
We then turned to making sure the new content was fit for purpose – this was by no means a ‘lift and shift’ exercise. As a start, we developed an intranet content style guide – this included content principles and writing techniques, content planning templates and examples of key pages. We embedded this by running workshops with key content producers and supporting the company’s intranet content lead.
The outcome
Our work moved the organisation from having an intranet structured along lines of the business hierarchy to one based on the actual needs of employees.
The push towards keeping things lean, clear and useful has paid off. Around 90% of employees now use the intranet, now called the Hub, every month – an enormous jump from the previous platform. People have easily been able to figure out how things work. And the technical manager has seen a noticeable drop in people struggling to find information – 99% of people are finding what they’re looking for and enjoying using the platform. There’s a lot more engagement, too, with lots of likes and comments on blogs and articles.
In the words of one intranet user: “The Hub is a huge improvement on the old intranet. It is up to date and I love reading the blogs. Information is easy to find and apps are easily accessible.”