Bringing UX into a Corporate Intranet by Andrew Day

Consumers have come to expect that websites and apps will put their needs first – and when this doesn’t happen, they take their business elsewhere. But when those same consumers come to work, they’re stuck using products such as SAP and Sharepoint, which treat them, at every turn, as though their needs are an afterthought. The solution is obvious: revamp intranets so they deliver a consumer sector-style experience.

At Citrix, Andrew’s team has pulled this off by following a 3-part strategy, which he describes this way:

We got executive support early on, by showing data from peer and our own in-company research, on the cost of employee time wasted, and benefits of an experience-first intranet.
We involved key stakeholders, including HR, IT, Comms, and Facilities, part of an ongoing prototyping project, showcasing the possibilities of a new intranet, to the broader employee base.
Most intranets are built by IT departments or comms teams. Our team is different we put experience professional in charge. Our team is drawn from our Product Design and Marketing groups.

All its members have honed their skills in work where they have to put user needs first, or they’ll be out of a job. In my talk, I’ll share details on our approach, show how we solved problems we encountered, and give a tour of our new site. He will also recommend a series of tricks that will help any intranet-revamp team develop and implement a plan to get to success.

About Andrew Day

Andrew Day is a Senior Manager in the Citrix Customer Experience group. In this role, he is a design and dev leader, and drives key change management efforts that are transforming all parts of Citrix as an organization. His team’s past and current projects include:

Designing and prototyping new products built on Citrix APIs;
The complete revamp of the Citrix intranet;
A reworking of HR’s talent management system; and
An overhaul of the onboarding process for new employees.

Prior to Citrix, he spent several years in Adobes Experience Design group, and before that was a freelance digital strategist in New York and San Francisco. He holds a BA and PhD from Columbia University.

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