Levi's
Background
What is your first impression of Microsoft's SharePoint?
You might think it is just another boring document repository.
Document repositories often have a reputation for being dull. But what if they could be interactive, fun, and genuinely drive engagement?
Project Goal
During my time with Levi's, I spearheaded the transformation of a SharePoint site into a vibrant Global Information Security (GIS) hub. The goal was to elevate information security awareness across the international company in a dynamic, user-friendly manner.
My Role
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Strategist: Conducted stakeholder and user interviews to pinpoint communication pain points and define a strategy focusing on high engagement.
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Experience Designer: Led UX/UI, ensuring accessibility and seamless navigation. Designed to align with Levi's brand to boost familiarity and comfort.
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Project Manager: Set and managed project scope and development schedules.
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Technical Lead: Researched SharePoint capabilities, configured features, and executed implementation.
Methods & Innovation
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Double Diamond Design: Leveraged this framework to uncover user needs and tailor solutions.
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Gamification: Integrated quizzes, contests, and rewards to make security training genuinely fun.
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Multimedia Approach: Combined videos, discussion forums, FAQ sections, and attention-grabbing visual design for enhanced learning and retention.
Key Results
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Boosted User Engagement: The site became a popular destination due to its intuitive interface and entertaining elements.
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Measurable Awareness: Surveys and contests revealed increased security knowledge, allowing for targeted future improvement.
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Improved Communication: The forum fostered open dialogue between users and the GIS team, leading to proactive issue resolution.
Through this project, I was able to create an innovative and engaging platform that transformed the way teams communicate and collaborate by incorporating games, contests, surveys, forums, FAQs, and other interactive features.
Design Method
The Approach
For this project, I used the Double Diamond as my design process to identify the problems and deliver strategic and tactical solutions.
Discover
First, I talked to the team to understand the stakeholders and the users' pain points. From the interviews, I learned that the main pain points about information security for the global organization were that people tended not to care much, or not pay enough attention to this subject, which can potentially cause severe problems for the organization.
The pain points of both sides:
The Stakeholders
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They had a hard time making people interested and paying attention to the subject.
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They had very limited clarity on the typical information security threats that users faced daily.
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It was difficult to measure the effectiveness of their effort in bringing information security awareness across the board.
The Users
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Users found the information security subject not interesting.
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Users tended to underestimate the importance of information security habits.
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Users did not know enough about the appropriate actions and measures they should take.
By identifying the pain points one by one, it helped us to discover the biggest question, which was-
How do we make people more engaged and proactive about information security awareness?
Define
After we had identified the pain points, we started to define what we could do about this.
During this phase, I started the Define process by beginning a series of brainstorming meetings with the stakeholders. Not only that we dived deeper and specifically looked into each pain point, but we also started thinking about the possible solutions for each problem by asking questions.
Belows are the asks and the solutions we came up during those sessions:
The questions
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What can help to get the attention of the user?
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What do people generally like and enjoy when browsing online, including less tech-savvy people?
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What can help us identify the real issues and threats that the employees of Levi's are facing daily?
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How can we help the employees to access guidelines and information about information security easily?
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How do we spread the awareness across the board within the organization, from the entry-level staffs to executives?
Our solutions
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We could create a visually appealing and user-centered intranet space that aligns with Levi's branding guide and also the mission of GIS department.
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Instead of creating just another file storage system, we should focus on creating an environment where people can feel fun and comfortable digging around and hanging out.
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Let's blend professionalism with causal fun (just like Levi's brand)! Because of the highly configurable nature of SharePoint, lots of things could be done to create a multimedia user experience for the team site.
Develop
Starting from there, I delved into researching the capabilities of SharePoint and to understand what is feasible. Much to my surprise, SharePoint had many creative options at that time.
With a clear understanding of the potential, I set the project in motion by defining project scopes and development plans.
Simultaneously, I began crafting the information architecture and the content strategy framework. Implementing features designed to keep users engaged and make information security enjoyable.
Through a series of iterations, feedback sessions and testing with stakeholder teams, the virtual information security workplace was fine-tuned and ready to go live.
Delivery
This is a project with a month delivery time, thus, the design process was consolidated into keys and essential steps to drive an effective implementation in time.
As both the designer and the developer of the project, I researched and selected the right tools and plugins, and assembled the intranet workplace with a set of curated features that could nurture better communications about Information security for different organizations globally.
Visual Design
Design Direction
Understanding Levi's brand identity at that time, I chose the design direction that created the contrast between minimalistic and fun, with urban life imagery, as the visual guide to key contents throughout this virtual workplace.
Home Page
On the home page, it started with the featured information security video of the month, and a welcoming message from the GIS department, followed by the Call-To-Action to enter the latest contest and the featured story of the month.
Security Awareness Page
Levi's employees can find educational and engaging materials under the Security Awareness page, which featured a monthly information security poster, along with a survey section that allowed the team to periodically host different surveys to understand the current state of information security awareness in the organization. It also included a searchable FAQ section and more.
The Forum
Employees can find an information security forum to share issues and questions, communicate thoughts about information security with each other, and get answers and insights directly from the GIS team. For the team, it also became a helpful source to identify actual issues and questions that Levi's employees had encountered, and an opportunity to take action in real time.
Gamification - Information Security Challenge
Lastly, it is about time to have some fun! The users can access the latest information security challenges and games and have a chance to win a prize if they can champion the featured challenge.
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Impact
By leveraging a design-thinking approach, this project serves as a testament to the fact that even seemingly mundane content can be transformed into something compelling. It demonstrates how internal corporate systems can be as captivating as consumer-facing products, and how a culture of information security can be fostered within an organization.