ATCO Origins – Interactive Map
Designed and developed an internal responsive platform for ATCO employees to connect, engage, and celebrate their diverse backgrounds and experiences, fostering a more inclusive and collaborative workplace culture.
5 min read • 2021 - 2022 • ATCO.com
Intro
This is a project presented to the business from our SpaceLab team to promote ATCO Corp. diversity and inclusion.
ATCO strongly believes that a diverse workforce is made up of individuals with a wide range of identities, abilities, backgrounds, cultures, skills, perspectives and experiences.
Once our proposal was approved by the business, me and the team held weekly meetings to define our goals, our users' goals, and what our app would include.
Each week, I coordinated workshops with my team to help solve problems and make progress on the challenge.
Project Overview
Our process involved the creation of a survey at first to validate our idea and which direction we should take.
This phase allowed us to learn more so we were able to create low fidelity wireframes to be tested on a usability test using a tool called Maze.
Running Usability tests gives us the opportunity to learn about our users and to build something that fits our user’s expectation and that is more user-friendly.
This past year we have completed multiple of those tests which the learnings from those has been implemented into the site.
An example of one of those learnings is that users had concerns around ‘Data collection’ so we have made the call to implement a call to action explaining everything the user needs to know about this topic inside the site.
We first developed and MVP (Minimum viable Product) version of the App, so we were able to test it on beta users.
A MVP is a version of the app with enough features to be used by early users so the users can provide feedback and help us improve the app.
We have been working in a work frame called ‘Agile’.
This type of workflow let us stay organize and bring transparency between all of the team member and everyone can follow what everyone else is working on.
We have been using Jira as our primary ‘Project Management’ tool and ‘Figma’ as our primary design tool.
So once a page, a feature or any design is completed from my side and the spacelab side, we would give this requirement to the development team to start the development.
We have currently other ATCO site that use the same type of features than what we have in ATCO Origins, so we have had leverage existing code which has saved us a lot of time.
Main Challenges
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Understanding the business goals and requirements so we can create something that meets their expectations.
In spite of the fact that this seems like an obvious point, at first, the business was very unsure of what they wanted to create, and their only focus was to promote diversity and inclusion.
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There are certain regions of the world in which our drop-down list only provides a city name without a country suffix (e.g., Gaza and the West Bank).
Our mapping is done using Google application programming interfaces (API) and currently, there are 32 countries that Google Maps will not draw a border around, including Palestine and countries with geopolitical conflicts.
To address this particular pain point, I have added the option for users to manually enter their location name and pins on the map, as well as using the Google API.
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One of our main concerns was getting users to return to the site after their first visit.
Based on this specific need, we have collaborated with the ATCO Marketing Team and developed a campaign strategy that focuses on:
Notifying users about new features so they will come back to the site to try those, as well as creating a "Playbook" which could be presented as an ice-breaker game for new ATCO employees, and email notifications when users a user is following is making modification on his profile.
Project steps
Research and tests
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Discovery phase including workshops
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Target Audience Analysis
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Discovery test
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Usability testing
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Define the User flow
User Interface
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Wireframing (Low to high fid.)
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Creation of the Guidelines (Design system)
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UI Design
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Prototyping
“Skepticism around data collection and information is at an all-time high. Understanding the "why" and "where" my information is going to end up is important. It also shows transparency.”
"Very important to learn of the experiences of others to foster understanding and honour our uniqueness."
"I connect better with people when I get to learn about them. Not knowing your co-workers leads to an "all business" attitude. In my opinion, we work together better as teams when we have a personal connection..."
Discovery test
A discovery test seeks to learn about which direction to head in and the general destination we are aiming for.
Our discovery test consisted of 18 questions built on Maze, and 40 testers participated. The purpose of these questions is to determine how the tool will be used by users.
To begin with, we wanted to learn more about our users and what units they represent, as well as what is their primary geographic location and where they work. (i.e. an office-based position with a dedicated workstation).
User's most important desires for the site:
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92% of our users want: Promoting a corporate culture of inclusivity should be a primary goal for such a tool.
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100% of our users want: Connect with others from your location of origin.
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86% of our users want: To share their origin stories
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95 % of our users want: Value learning about their ATCO colleague's origin stories
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100% of our users want: The need to understand how their information will be used
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88% of our users want: New employees would benefit from exploring this tool during onboarding.
Our testing sessions revealed that our users preferred learning about their colleagues' stories over sharing their own.
In light of that key information, we decided to make the "origin location" mandatory to avoid having an empty map, as well as the option to hide from all users exactly who this pin belongs to, so it can be shared anonymously with users.
Users saw this tool as well a primary element of onboarding and that this would be a suitable tool for an interactive team activity at the start of meetings (e.g, an ice breaker activity).
Usability testing
Our usability test was tested on 24 users from all parts of ATCO.
Our usability score came back very high (90%) which was very encouraging for the team and demonstrated that we are on the right track.
(A usability score measures the usability of your design based on key performance indicators: success, bounces, duration, and misclicks.)
Key Learnings:
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As part of the test, we tested out our "first-time login flow," which is different from the other times when a user connects to the app.
The screen goals are collecting information about our users such as their origins, stories, and personal information rather than landing directly on the map and having an empty map.
Users can choose to skip most questions and come back to their settings to update them.
The success rate for the above was 100%.
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Users were interested in watching videos of our leaders demonstrating the importance of diversity as well as themself sharing their own information on the site.
The majority of respondents said it will encourage them to insert more of their personal information, which was a great win for us.
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There was a high demand among users for the ability to filter the map by specific criteria such as country, work location, and a search bar to find the best match for their needs.
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To continually improve the site, add a feedback form to the live site to allow users to give their feedback.
Users still saw concerns around data collection in the test which drove the decision in implementing a modal on the final product which would be easy to access for all, with all the needed information regarding Data collection.
The question around "What happens if ATCO employees leave the company what will happen to their Data and Pins?"
This was a great call that I brought to the developers, and the response was as easy as since they won't have an email address in our OKTA system, all their information will be wiped out.
*A preview of the User flow is presented below
Guidelines and designs
This project was designed following IDES - ATCO Design System which I have created as-well.
