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Enhancing USPTO's intranet pages, with a focus on improving community engagement for employees
The United States Patents and Trademarks Office (USPTO) was adjusting to being a remote-first company. Connecting employees virtually came with a new set of challenges that I was prepared to solve for.
Disclaimer: due to an NDA, some key information has been blurred out and omitted. If you would like to hear more, please contact me!
Context
Adapting to a remote environment
The pandemic made USPTO a remote-only company which made company employees feel more disconnected than ever. I revamped the company intranet's Community Page incorporating features such as a virtual bulletin board to better simulate remote social interaction and bridge the gap between the system and real-world interactions.
As an intern, I presented critical project checkpoints to supervisors, emphasizing the importance of my work in cultivating a more efficient work environment.
Timeline
June 2023 - Sep 2024
Role
UX Design Intern
Team
3 UX Strategists
1 UX Researcher
Problem
Lack of connection between employees led to lower productivity
Employees were used to water cooler chats, not Teams chats. Employees were simply communicating less both on a personal level and a professional level. This was leading to less employees finishing their tasks efficiently and slowing the organization down as a whole.
Solution
Building a Community Page to virtually reorient a workplace
Upcoming Events
Upcoming Events included the Newsfeed section and the Event List! Tried and true resources reimagined to fit employee’s evolving needs.
Sharing
The sharing section of the community page included a place for community-driven announcements, links to blogs, and resources employees could utilize.
Impact
Numerical data that shows my work’s impact
50% increase
After surveying 40 users before and after the launch of the new community pages, 50% reported an increase in satisfaction, noting that they felt more engaged following the update.
13,000 users
Over 13,000 employees benefitted from the improved changes to the community page.
Keep reading for an overview of my design process.
Background
Getting familiar with the unfamiliar: exploring USPTO’s intranet
Prior to this internship, I had never interacted with a company’s intranet before. After spending just an hour exploring USPTO’s internal employee pages, I was overwhelmed. I knew I was brought on to help improve USPTO’s intranet but they had more pages than I could count, much less redesign for in the limited time I had. I just didn’t know where to start.
So, with the help of my manager, I made a plan.
1.
I realized I needed to...
identify the emergent problems
2.
by
gathering insights from 2 focus
groups of 10 employees each
3.
and
prioritize solving opportunity areas that align with both employee and business needs.
Understanding the problem space by facilitating employee focus groups
As a newcomer, I wanted to understand the unique interactions of USPTO employees with the intranet and ensure I was spending my internship designing something that employees felt would improve their time at USPTO. Hence, I decided to conduct focus groups as an exploratory first step.
While creating a script for focus groups, I focused on asking employees guiding questions to identify opportunity areas.
| Prior to the pandemic, what did you typically use the intranet for? During the pandemic, how has this changed?
| Which resources do you use the most?
| What is communication with fellow employees like in this remote environment?
Positive Insights: USPTO was home to several great resources, answers to most questions that employees had could be found on the intranet
Insights regarding areas with rooms for improvement: employees felt disconnected from each other post-pandemic, USPTO’s resources were sometimes difficult to locate, communication between employees was limited to Teams calls and messages, the page is not pleasing to look at, sometimes the text was not legible due to the background
Opportunity Areas Identified:
Improving the navigation menu to help users locate resources more efficiently
Creating resources to help others feel more connected
Prioritizing emergent problems based on USPTO’s needs
To prioritize, I had an in-depth conversation with my manager where we analyzed our opportunity areas. While both were important, we wanted to analyze the metrics to ensure we solving problems which would have the highest impact.
We surveyed the users from our focus groups and determined the following:
Community Page Resources
100% of users surveyed thought the resources on the old community page were good for facilitating cursory connections between employees
but
80% of users said the resources were not enough to make personal connections with other employees or feel involved on a deeper and more meaningful level
Navigation Menu
90% of total users found it easy to find what they were looking for, even if it took slightly longer than expected
but
80% of users found the navigation menu cumbersome and felt that specific resources lacked visibility.
Based on user needs alone, improving the navigation alone seemed to take top priority but we wanted to consult with the Commissioner of Trademarks as well. He emphasized the importance of community during this new remote setup and explained how it would benefit the organization:
“According to a study by Deloitte Consulting, feeling like you belong can lead to a 56% increase in job performance, a 50% reduction in turnover risk, and a 75% decrease in sick days.”
After considering both employee needs and business needs, we decided to place the Community page as our top priority with the Navigation Menu being a close second.
This led us to asking:
Ideation
Gathering community page centered insights to guide ideation
We gathered a fresh group of 5 users to to identify specifically where the Community Page wasn’t meeting their needs.
Resource 1: R Friends
What it is: A connection program for employees to meet up in-person and get to know each other through social activities.
Insights: Users enjoyed it pre-pandemic but emphasized its irrelevance given the current climate.
Resource 2: Let’s Get Together
What it is: A calendar of upcoming events.
Insights: Users unanimously agreed this was the most useful resource on the page.
Resource 3: Friends Picture Library
What it is: A place to upload pictures with other employees.
Insights: Users didn’t have pictures with coworkers anymore but had other photos they were interested in sharing.
Additional Insights from Surveying Users:
They miss learning about current events and news from the in-office bulletin board.
Given the remote nature, they would love to share pictures from their personal life with employees as well.
In the past, certain resources such as the Podcast Hub, Madison Messages, and TM People were fun to see.
Ideating new features to understand how best to meet user needs
Newsfeed Feature - optimizing layout for higher visibility
(to replace ‘R Friends’)
❌ Do I have to click see more on every single announcement I want the full details of?
✅ I am able to scan all recent announcements at once without extra clicks.
Upcoming Events Feature - to increase discoverability for upcoming events
(to augment ‘Let’s Get Together’)
❌ Low visibility for date
❌ How do I add an event?
❌ Can I see all upcoming?
✅ Fits all users needs
Picture Sharing Feature - creating categories based on relevant pictures
(to reinvent ‘Friends Picture Library’)
❌ All picture announcements grouped into one category
✅ 3 different categories with a preview of the most recent announcement from each
Final Designs
Pulling our iterations together to create the final product
Bringing the community page together with our menu explorations
While working on the community page, another UX Intern worked to refine the menu for the intranet. After conducting secondary research and providing feedback, we landed on the following iteration.
We combined this with the community page for seamless navigation.
Wrapping up
What I learned
Remote work is engaging when set up to be. Coming of age during the height of the pandemic taught me that social communication is just as possible on screen as off. But conveying that to people who were not as familiar with online communication required a certain level of skills and design thinking to facilitate.
Projects will get scrapped. There were several times when what I was working on got scrapped on was deemed unnecessary halfway through me working on it. While it was frustrating, I quickly learned that businesses move fast and that as long as I was learning and growing from each experience, I would succeed in any and all future tasks.
Reflecting on the experience
It was wonderful to be able to work with such a large organization in a remote capacity. It gave me the knowledge and the time to truly connect with so many wonderful individuals all over the United States and understand how best to set up the community page to facilitate success.