New responsive Housing Association Intranet

We have recently delivered an Intranet for First Choice Homes Oldham.

A new Intranet for FCHO

We have recently delivered an Intranet for First Choice Homes Oldham. Our approach has been refreshingly different. Rather than foist a ready-made solution upon the client, laden with features that clutter and won’t be used, we have listened to their specific organisational and user issues and developed an intranet specifically tailored to their needs.

Above all we worked hard to simplify and prioritise, creating as an end result, a tool to be used not neglected.

We undertook a significant Discovery process which included extensive stakeholder engagement. We also heard from the business to validate the objections and problems staff and teams faced every day to ensure what we built matched the future strategy of the business.

This then defined the user experience and user journeys within an interactive wireframe prototype that was tested to refine the journeys and outcomes. It was always measured against the core concept of making the system the goto solution. Not just because it was mandated but because it was really was the best and easiest to use.

Key features included the user directory, popular documents and a ‘proper’ document search. These became the priority and focus.
Findability was a key focus of the document search and we were determined to make this overlooked feature really work well. This was achieved from careful listening and analysis of keywords to create a tagging system that grappled with ‘corporate speak’ naming conventions used by partners vs the more colloquial daily usage terms.

We integrated with Active Directory to ensure the system ‘just worked’ with seamless login and used the same directory information that the users already used day to day.

The site was fully responsive to ensure users were able to use this at their desks or mobile within the building or network. By taking a mobile first view we had already ensured the most important areas worked well on any device. Most importantly we retained the prioritisation and clutter free focus on productivity whatever the screen size.