The FCO is a small organization with only a few staff. They still need consistent, reliable and secure communications to ensure they are able to deliver services.

The dedication and hard work of the staff has meant they were able to collaborate on shared projects in an informal way. Switching between email, paper in person conversations and various microsoft programs as needed.

Despite the hard work of the staff having no set process for communicating or collaborating causes them to work much harder than they need to.

The FCO makes frequent use of various channels of communication, but these do not lend themselves to holding digital assets that are worked on by multiple people at the same time.

Version control is a challenge for the FCO. Staff members email revisions back and forth creating an information overload as they receive many emails per day.

The storage of both currents projects and existing resources is very messy. Documents of various types are generally, but not always, stored in the Microsoft Explorer. This system does not work as there is no consistency as to how assets are labeled organized and saved. Often each staff member has their own information management preferences they don’t communicate to others. As with many organizations drive was informally dedicated for the storage of public documents. This drive is full of miscellaneous information.

To create an intranet my team interviewed the head of the FCO. She explained the formal organization of the FCO. This meant we now knew who reported to whom. This discussion also clarified various areas of specialization that each of the three full time staff worked in.

The interview made my team and I aware of what general duties each staff member did. To get a more precise idea of daily workflow we used a number of UX research tools. We spoke with other employees. I performed a card sorting exercise. We also examined the publications the FCO made available to its clients. Working in the opposite direction, and seeing the FCO from the perspective of a client gave insights we didn’t get while talking to staff members.

The research my group and I performed confirmed the problem that the FCO had originally brought to us. Inconsistency in communication. Through work we did in investigating the FCO and listening to the concerns of its staff did allow up to find out exactly what was standing between the FCO and their goal of efficient communication. Based on real incidents we developed a number of common case studies our Intranet would solve

CASE STUDY 1

Over the course of a day an employee may find multiple different links at different times resulting in multiple emails. In this situation another co worker may have sent the same resources not knowing the recipient has received the identical recommendations from another. Allowing all staff to see what public communications others have received would prevent his problem.

CASE STUDY 2

When a book or video has been added or removed from the FCO library The library students need to email their supervisor. This student supervisor must then email the library supervisor who in turn emails the Webmaster to update the library catalogue on the website. This fills up inboxes and wastes time. Allowing the students in charge of collection management to contact the webmaster would prevent this.

CASE STUDY 3

Classes and guest speakers are some of the most popular and most resource intensive events at the FCO. Patrons love getting in person advice about their child and eldercare issues. Often the single event room at the FCO can be double booked. Some weeks it is not used at all. A single live online calendar would be perfect to ensure this space is used effectively.

Given our research an intranet would be the best solution to imprecise communication. In order to create an intranet we wanted a platform that was inexpensive, easy to change,and required no knowledge of backend design.

We were aware that the FCO does have access to an offsite webmaster. However seeing as we could not learn his duties and workflow we assumed he would not be expected to spend a lot of time maintaining the site.

Our intranet would not require the FCO to purchase hosting until they were sure an intranet would be useful. At this point they could buy a hosting the platform and have greater back end control.

In addition to being quick to set up and cheap using an online platform would mean the site could be made without knowledge of HTML or CSS. this would be a huge benefit as FCO staff could make changes themselves.

WIX was chosen as chosen as the platform we would use. Several team members had used it in the past and were very impressed with the results.

My group started immediately so we could begin prototyping and getting feedback from our users. Online web development platforms would allow this.

Wix lived up to its reputation and performed very well as a web design platform. For this reason, I and other members of my team were able to do much of the back end and front end very quickly. We chose some default options for stylistic choices. The FCO already had a pink and white colour scheme for their publications. We adopted this. The FCO and its staff were also knowledgeable about AODA requirements for web design as we were. This was a benefit as the existing thematic preferences had accessibility concerns such as contrast already addressed.

The bulk of our thinking and creating was involved in choosing which widgets to put onto our site. WIX has many distinct widgets that correspond to various functionalities. Drawing from our earlier research. Particularly card sorting we added the following to the site:

   A shared calendar,

   A news section,

   An area to work on blog posts

   A shared drive

   A Booklist

   Contact Information

We did not add any function that enabled email or chat. These would have created redundant lines of communication.

The intranet was well received. With the calendar app being something the staff mentioned they made use of often. After my term as a student was over I inquired with my supervisor as to the current usage of the site. She mentioned it was still in use.

The FCO still put many legacy type files and assets in to drives on Windows Explorer. A great benefit of the site that revealed itself over time was the easy at which students working for only a semester could be added to the system without learning and getting passwords to the various programs it replaced.