Background
Barclays Bank wanted to rethink the way their colleagues engage with each other, and to give them the tools they need to do their job effectively. A modern intranet would make it easier for colleagues to know who to contact in other parts of the business, to know what other teams are working on, and where to find up-to-date information.
My Role
I led the design of three key projects: Collaborate, Search and Role News for desktop and mobile experiences. This included running user research with bank staff in different divisions, mapping user journeys, creating clickable high-fidelity wireframes, and pitching new design concepts to Barclays programme executives.
Challenge
Barclays business divisions ran their own intranets disconnected from each other — built by different teams on different platforms. The main focus was to improve awareness of a single intranet platform and collaboration through teams, communities, flexible working and a smooth on-boarding process.
Goals
- —Platform awareness and functional understanding
- —Relevant information discovery and access
- —Cross-business colleague visibility with privacy considerations
- —Team communication and knowledge sharing facilitation
Design Process
A stakeholder workshop initiated the project, establishing scope and user groups. Research activities and design deliverables were mapped against the implementation roadmap.
Research Finding — Information Security vs. Openness
Staff interviews revealed tension between security protocols and collaborative accessibility. Access management remained a manual, permission-based process that hindered legitimate work progress and created time inefficiencies.
Building Awareness
Research indicated colleagues primarily used search functionality for people and information discovery. Many remained unaware they accessed the intranet through search, abandoning the platform when results proved inaccurate.
Plan
I created an Eco-map of Barclays' business intranets and search engines to identify available information and technologies. Through co-create workshops we mapped current ways of working in journey maps, then created and tested clickable wireframes with different user groups.
Co-creation workshops mapped current working practices through journey maps for different user groups. Iterative testing of clickable wireframes with staff informed subsequent design refinements.
Three collaborative features emerged: Teams (invitation-based workgroups with access controls), Communities (informal interest groups), and Tailored News (role-specific information feeds).
Outcome
A functioning intranet service that colleagues relied on to do their work was received successfully, leading to a 70% increase in use over previous years. Our project won 1st place in the Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) awards 2020 Best Intranet category, and the Institute for Internal Communication #IoICAwards19 awards 2019.
