Transforming the TQ experience for Accenture employees

My role: User experience | User interface
My team: Project manager, project owner, UX writer, developers

Context

Accenture's CEO, Julie Sweet, announced to all employees the new, company-wide initiative called TQ (Technology Quotient). The purpose of TQ is enabling staff to become fluent in emerging technologies such as AI, Cloud, Blockchain, DevOps, Agile and more.

To support the launch of the TQ initiative, an internal website was developed by another team, providing links to courses and other supporting information. It proved to be unsuccessful as most staff made short visits to the site, choosing not to complete the courses or visit the supporting pages.

I was asked to redesign it to increase conversion rates whilst also matching the new Accenture branding introduced in October 2020.

Our goals

1

To refresh the TQ site for an improved user experience and to reflect the new brand

2

To communicate the importance of TQ to all employees and direct them to the training (increasing conversions)

3

Engage employees on TQ and encourage them to take the assessments

Before I began the process of redesigning the TQ site, I first needed to understand why staff were not engaging with it. I invited staff at key levels and locations to share their screens over Microsoft Teams and verbalise their thoughts as they performed 3 tasks on the TQ site.

Research

Thinking aloud

I asked users to perform 3 tasks verbalizing their thoughts as they move through the website.

Task 1: Find and click the button to access the courses

83% were unsuccessful on their first attempt - incorrectly clicking on the "Get Started Guide" button which led them to a general information page. The correct link is highlighted in purple.

Task 2: Find specific information regarding Cloud

58% of users either selected one or none of the correct links, highlighted in purple. Where users clicked one link, they did not realise the second link also needed to be chosen.

Task 3: Find updates on TQ

50% of users clicked the "News" at the nav and a further 25% clicked the "View all news" button - both cohorts expecting to find updates in one of these locations.

Card sorting

I created 3 categories and asked participants what they would include in each category.

User journey map

To help me to understand how users interact with the TQ website I mapped a customer journey.

Key findings

Users struggled with finding the correct links to courses
Dividing information between different sections was counter-intuitive and confusing for users

New site map

I began the process of building a new site map and realised the volume of information - how to begin training, how the learning experience works - was too much for the Home Page.

So I proposed an "About TQ" page.

I also introduced a gateway page with links to individual pages for every TQ topic, listed alphabetically. Each topic page would then contain all content for that topic.

These changes made the TQ Home Page much simpler to read, easier to navigate, and more inviting for new and returning users.

Wireframes testing

Using the results gathered during the interviews, I created new wireframes. We then invited a new cohort of 9 employees, again at varying levels and locations, to navigate these wireframes.

The users found it easy to accomplish what the interviewer was asking while they also raised the following issues and suggestions:

Button labels could be more specific
About TQ page had too many tabs to click and the information contained could be clearer
Some users suggested removing the dedicated Topics page and moving the Topics links to the Home Page - others preferred to keep the Topics page as-is