In 2016 I took a short career break and did a course in UX design. It had always been something that has interested me in view of the work I’ve done with intranets and websites throughout my career.
The course with General Assembly in London was a brilliant introduction covering user research techniques, analysing user journeys and interface design, prototyping and user testing. It culminated in a portfolio project to put all of it together.
It led very quickly to a piece of contract work helping a client overhaul their intranet. (We completed the 12 month project in around 5 months and using only around 75% of the planned budget …in case you were wondering)
But this fanatastic grounding in UX design got me thinking about the user experience of the Internal Communications we produce.
How much do staff welcome the email we write and the videos we make, and the intranets they have to wade through to find what they want?
What if we could lessen the burden of consuming communication to improve the experience of employees at work?
And that’s what led me to start a mission to reduce and simplify comms in organisations.
Now, I always start of by working out:
- “what would happen if we didn’t communicate that?”
- “do staff want to know this?”
- “do they need to know?”
- “how can we minimise worry and tell people just in time, not too early, and not too late?”
I think going through this process leads to much simpler, easier project communications and perhaps even more successful change programmes.
Imagine how much happier and more productive people could be if we could reduce the overwhelm for them.