ATCOpedia – Your Gateway to Collective Knowledge
Architected IDES, ATCO’s internal design system, using Flutter’s default component set as the foundation for a scalable UI framework.
4 min read • 2022 • ATCO.com
What is ATCOpedia?
ATCOpedia is a tool to improve the way knowledge, project learning and expertise are captured and shared across ATCO. The tool is intended to support our growth as a learning organization, specifically allowing us to create, acquire and transfer knowledge. ATCOpedia was developed using the SpaceLab execution framework, a collaborative and iterative process, involving discovery, testing and validation.
Our goal with this test is to learn more about your expectations on the ATCOpedia site and to improve the user experience.
Project Intro
I joined the ATCOpedia team after the site had already been developed for nearly a year.
In the absence of a project manager, I created a road map to be more efficient.
As there were tight deadlines and a lot of requirements from the business, testing was a huge and important part of the project so we can determine what works best and what does not.
Sprint 1:
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Conducting new interviews and reviewing last year's interviews.
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Researching similar apps to ATCOpedia.
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Redefining our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
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Creation of the user flow.
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Running a discovery test.
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Create a first version of the landing page (business requirement).
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Finalizing all of the wireframes.
Sprint 2:
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Run a usability test based on our learnings.
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Refine the wireframes.
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Run new interviews with the new designs.
Sprint 3:
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Create guidelines.
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Final design.
Sprint 4:
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Development.
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QA.
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A/B Testing.
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'Data collection' for future improvement.
*A preview of the 'Road map' is shown below (Created with 'FigJam' by 'Figma')
Research findings
In order to avoid wasting time on wireframes or designs in future sprints, I decided to do google research on how we could make the site better, including competitor analysis.
The results of these studies will enable me to build new mock-ups and run a usability test on our users.
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Estimated reading time
Incorporating an “Estimated reading time”, improves users' engagement.
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The Power of Pictures: Increasing Engagement With Images
- Including images and graphics with your blog posts and social media is essential to get the most out of your engagement potential with possible clients.
- In fact, articles that include an image have 94 percent more total views than text-only articles.
*A preview of the digital wireframes is shown below - low fidelity
Current pain points
Pain points are specific problems faced by current or prospective customers in the marketplace. Pain points include any problems the customer may experience along their journey and the business during the project development phases.
Site current pain points:
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Difficulty filtering properly.
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Users can not share articles.
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The site doesn’t have the ability to upload documents to its own database.
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It is difficult to understand that the App is for everyone
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Our engagement rate is very low.
Usability testing
Our usability tests consisted of 25 questions built on Maze, and 50 testers participated. The purpose of these questions is to determine how the tool will be used by users and learn from the user's behaviors so we can improve the site based on their needs.
Please find below a preview of the type of questions our users were asked so you can get a better understanding of the final user interface.
Learnings preview:
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80% of our users are interested in contacting contributors through a hyperlink to teams.
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88% of our users would like to see the dates of when articles were originally created and last edited on the homepage.
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82% of our users would like to see how many times each article has been viewed on the home page.
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92% of our users prefer the designs that implement an image for each article.
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92% of our users prefer the designs that implement an image for each article.
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89% of our users found that our new filtering component made it easier for them to find relevant articles.
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92% of our users made it through easily to the other sections on the site. (e.q. the draft section)
Our testing sessions also revealed that:
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Our users would like to implement a 'comment' section for each article.
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Improved text editor with formatting functions (bold, italics, underline, font size, indentation, bulleting, numbering).
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Add videos to supplement articles.
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Ability to attach their own tags to articles.
Interviews
Two interviews with six users in total were conducted, in which the same questions were asked.
Interviews report:
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6/6 users see benefits in improving our filter section in addition of adding a "Search" functionality.
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6/6 users mentioned the need in getting email notifications.
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5/6 users see benefits in having a single URL for each article.
'User 1' says: ”Site well laid out, easy to figure out, easy to access what the projects are about”.
'User 2' says: “Likes the minimal clean design”.
'User 3' says: “Needs to be more user-friendly, difficult to understand posts. pore hierarchy on the design (e.q. Wikipedia), difficult to navigate. -
4/6 users assumed that ATCOpedia isn’t for everyone
'User 2' says: ”Assumed that the site was only for SpaceLab projects”.
'User 3' says: “Assumes it’s a place for people who are more tech-savvy”.
Conclusion: Bringing consciousness that ATCOpedia is for all. -
4/6 users see the benefits of seeing the contributors of projects.
Conclusion: 'Call to action' to a 'Dialog' with the contributors + Add a hyperlink to teams to directly chat with the contributors”
Final designs
As our timeline was short, we decided to divide the requirements into 2 phases, so that we can prioritize the work and launch the site on time.
Must have for current launch:
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Upload Documents to Custom Database
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Store artifacts on your own database.
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Implement a "Search" functionality.
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Analytics - Weekly / Daily Summary.
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Create a unique URL to share a project with colleagues.
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Improve a Landing Page.
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Add new content from other business units / not just SpaceLab.
Next launch 'nice to have':
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Ability to Follow Contributors.
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Receive Notification when Employee adds projects.
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Receive Notification when employees are following you.
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Point (or badge) system.
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Measure the quality of articles (how might we?).
This project was designed following IDES - ATCO Design System which I have created as-well.
*A preview of the final designs is shown below
