BC Hydro was switching to a new content management system and had decided to use the opportunity to seek funding for site redesign at the same time. They hired a consultant to create the blueprint for the redesign. While the consultant delivered a blueprint document, the information architecture solution was found to have issues after usability testing was conducted by a second consultant. BC Hydro hired ADGi to help them fix the information architecture in preparation for content migration.
Given that two consultants had previously worked on this project as well as the content management system vendor, there was little appetite or budget to do the work. Staff had no tolerance for more discovery meetings, user interviews, or surveys. At this stage they just wanted the problems fixed.
Given the limited budget, ADGi decided that a two-staged approach, working directly with the Intranet Manager, would work best. The first stage of the process was to create a site map of the existing site. Typically, we would have created a content inventory in a spreadsheet but in this case we chose to create a visual map of the existing site. The benefit to doing this was enormous as for the first time the Intranet Manager could easily visualize the site. For the second stage of the process, we worked collaboratively with the Intranet Manager to, first, adjust the proposed IA to something that would meet the user needs (which had been defined loosely in the existing blueprint) and, second, move blocks of pages to fit the new structure.
As with most intranet sites the solution is a work in progress. BC Hydro has a framework that is flexible and can be modified as the company and employee needs evolve. The Intranet Manager and successive team members understand how the structure works so that future changes can be implemented without the help of a consultant.
