TIBCO Intranet Platform Research Study

Mixed methods research study conducted over 4 weeks in Summer 2019

Previously, TIBCO had two main intranet platforms: Inside-Tibco and Tibco-Connect

An "intranet" is a website service that is private, restricted to a certain network or to certain users. Many companies have intranet platforms to provide employees with access to internal resources and company updates. Tibco's problem was that it was struggling to transition from an older intranet website, Inside-Tibco (IT), to a newer one, Tibco-Connect (TC).

During my internship at TIBCO, I worked with Tibco's Business Innovation Team to better understand the specifics of how and why TIBCO employees used the currently available intranet platforms. My goal was to help design a  more complete experience within the new website, Tibco-Connect.

I utilized a survey study of TIBCO employees' to better understand the relationship they had with the two different intranet platforms. This survey study resulted in several findings and recommendations for updates to Tibco-Connect, specifically in regards to functional elements such as search, design of the home page, and updates to the navigation/information architecture. I followed up this study with a cognitive walkthrough and heuristic analysis of the new intranet platform. 

Sections

Documents

Research Questions

• Why do people use Inside-Tibco/Tibco-Connect?
• What information is available on Inside-Tibco that is not available on Tibco-Connect?
  • What specific information needs to be transferred from IT to TC?
  • What do people like about IT that is not available in TC?
• What usability/design issues are apparent in Inside-Tibco/Tibco-Connect?
  • How can these issues be fixed?

My goal was to learn from both platforms to ensure that any old problems do not remain and any new problems are accounted for.

Survey Studies

The surveys were sent out to Tibco employees in two rounds: the first round asking about InsideTibco and the second round asking about Tibco-Connect. Each survey had the exact same line of questioning, so that comparing results between them was fair. The answers from these two surveys were individually analyzed using a thematic analysis then compared against each other for further findings and recommendations.

Survey Questions

We drafted the survey to be short enough to complete in 5-10 minutes, but still ask important questions to give a complete picture of an employee's use of the platform. The survey starts out with simple demographic questions but ends with open-ended questions so employees can describe specifics about their experience.

The survey begins with an introduction to the survey and a guarantee that the responses would be anonymous. Here is a list of the questions and prescribed answers (if used):

• In what area of TIBCO do you work?
  • Marketing
  • P&T
  • PSG
  • HR
  • Sales
  • Finance
  • IT
  • Legal
• How long have you been at TIBCO?
  • 0-1 year
  • 2-5 years
  • 6-10 years
  • 11-19 years
  • 20+ years
• How often do you go to insideTIBCO?
  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Once a month
  • Once a quarter
  • Yearly
  • Never
• Why do you visit Inside TIBCO? Is there any information you’re looking for?
• What makes you want to visit InsideTIBCO?
• What makes you NOT want to visit InsideTIBCO?
• Questions or additional comments?

Survey Distribution and Recruitment

We created the surveys using Google forms, which also made distributing survey links and organizing data into a spreadsheet simple. We pushed the survey link out to Tibco employees through a mass email and posting to relevant Slack channels.

The first Inside-Tibco survey was pushed out and gathered 155 responses in one week. The second Tibco-Connect survey was pushed out a week later, which gathered 138 responses over the course of a week. Once each survey's results were gathered, I analyzed the results for common trends and themes.

Thematic Analysis and Findings

I analyzed each survey's responses individually to gather common trends. I grouped themes by each question and kept a count of how often each theme was referenced by a respondent. Each survey took about a week to analyze fully, but the results were worth the effort.

Themes from the "why" open-ended question from the survey - Each count is associated with one employee who mentioned a theme

Thematic Analysis and Findings

I analyzed each survey's responses individually to gather common trends. I grouped themes by each question and kept a count of how often each theme was referenced by a respondent. Each survey took about a week to analyze fully, but the results were worth the effort.

For each question, I ranked the top 5 main themes and gave brief explanations on what they meant or how respondents talked about the topic. Here is one example:

Why do you visit Inside-TIBCO? Is there any info you are looking for?

• Personnel Directory - 72 counts
  • This directory is still in regular use by many employees today, especially because employees prefer it over other options like TIBCO-Connect or Workday’s directories.
• Expenses- 37 counts
  • It seems that the link to the expense software on Inside-Tibco is more memorable/easier to find for employees. The new expense reporting system will likely be linked on TIBCO-Connect, so making sure the link is easy to find and visible to employees will be very important.
• IT/Helpdesk Info - 28 Counts
• HR Resources/Policies - 21 Counts
  • Shows a mix of many resources associated with HR, some of which were mentioned independently as well.
    Benefits (another resource associated with HR) received 12 independent mentions and the Holiday Calendar received 10.
    
• Procurement - 15 Counts
  • Similar to Expenses, employees know that the link to procurement services is on Inside-TIBCO

Initially, I tried to do some more quantitative style analysis alongside the thematic analysis. I planned to use the demographic data (time at the company, department) and determine which themes applied to different groups of employees. After a few trials with this, I felt the results were not giving us relevant new information or aiding the findings we already had, so I stuck to only an overall thematic analysis.

The findings from the thematic analysis answered the initial research questions on why employees used each intranet platform, what information was available on each specific platform, and what issues users had with each system. From here, I had to answer the final question: how to best fix these issues.

Recommendations

I completed this survey study by creating a list of recommendations for how to properly transition away from two systems and how to ensure that the employees would easily acclimate to only using Tibco-Connect. I chose 4 core recommendations to focus our next efforts on. Here is each recommendation, with a small portion of the explanation (full explanations can be found in the findings report below):

Fix the search on Tibco-Connect and ensure dead links do not show up in the results
One of the biggest issues employees had with TC is a struggle to reach the information that they want to see due to poor organization. Though the poor organization of TC also needs to be addressed, the first major upgrade in usability of TC will come with a working search functionality.

Make the personnel directory on TIBCO-Connect more like the one on Inside-TIBCO
With the personnel directory being the most common reason to use IT, it would make sense to fix this issue on TC before fully retiring IT. This might be more challenging than could be anticipated since the platform that TC is built on has its own proprietary directory, which is not as usable as our own.

With the upcoming new expense software, make sure that the link to this program is easily accessible via TIBCO-Connect and make sure the location of the link to it on TC is made clear in the release announcement 
"Expenses" was one of the most commonly sought out features that people go to IT. With the release of the new expense software, we should make it abundantly clear where employees can get access to this new software. This can be done by bundling the link to the new software on TC with the Slack announcement about its release. We should also include it as an announcement on the homepage of TC, just in case people miss out on the Slack announcement.

Replace the “What’s New” section with an improved “Quick Links” Section
A major reason why a lot of employees continue to use IT is that they know where the links to the resources they need are on IT, but not on TC. Things like "procurement services" are linked in TC but are buried in the site without a proper search functionality to dig them out. To combat this issue, I would recommend making IT and TC resources that are used frequently very clearly visible on the front page of TC with a “Quick Links” -esque section that replaces the “What’s New” section.

The Tibco-Connect home screen vs. a quick mockup based on my recommendation
The highly visible and easily accessible "Quick Links" section would allow employees to get to the most important resources quickly

Next Steps: Cognitive Walkthrough and Heuristic Evaluation

With my recommendations complete, I submitted the report of my findings to the Business Innovation Team. However, I felt there were still some missing pieces of information about the overall usability of Tibco-Connect. To fill these gaps, I conducted a cognitive analysis and heuristic evaluation of Tibco-Connect. Though I cannot share the exact results of these studies, I can give a brief overview of my methodology.

Methodology

I started the cognitive walkthrough by going through the website in a set of situations that a common employee might find themselves in. I based many situations on common themes from the survey study and recorded any interesting notes or issues I had while doing these tasks.

I also created my own resource page on Tibco-Connect for the UX team to get the perspective of a content creator. I compiled a lot of information on many aspects of Tibco-Connects overall usability and then started to categorize them.

When categorizing common usability positives and negatives, I based my explanations on Jacob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics. Typically, I would categorize usability aspects based on the individual heuristic the aspect applies to, but I chose to try something different this time. I categorized each finding based on the specific page/feature the aspect applied to rather than the heuristic. I chose to do this because the audience of this report, the Business Innovation Team, would care more about which pages had what issues rather than what issues were on which pages. For a smaller system or for a more UX related audience, a traditional heuristic evaluation might have been more appropriate, but I believe this presentation made the findings much more understandable and actionable.

Final Thoughts

After all the research was completed, I became somewhat of an expert on the platform that Tibco-Connect was built on. Alongside the Business Innovations Team, I implemented my design recommendations based on the findings from the surveys, cognitive walkthrough, and heuristic analysis. Ultimately, many of these changes were made to the design and content of Tibco-Connect. Inside Tibco was retired without major issues and employees were able to easily access relevant resources and information through Tibco-Connect. 

When all was said and done, I was really satisfied with the results of these research studies. I enjoyed that I was able to help create something that benefitted my co-workers, as well as myself. I also liked that I was a part of the implementation process for my recommendations. The platform Tibco-Connect was built on had its techical and usabiliity quirks, but we were able to overcome them and create a better experience for TIBCO employees.

Even after the Inside Tibco transition, I continued to help work on Tibco-Connect. One of the most important times my experience came into play was when Covid-19 first starting rearing it's ugly head. With a large amount of new  information on office closures, healthcare, and work from home protocols, Tibco-Connect was able to work as an easily accessible central resource for these many different topics. As part of a big cross-functional effort, I designed and connected the main homepage for Covid-19 resources to all of the relevant pieces of information on Tibco-Connect in 2 days. Before this research study, something like this would not have been possible and many employees would be stuck searching for information with no success. My research allowed TIBCO to mobilize quickly and create employee resources that were usable, understandable, and accessible.

Mario Paolini 2023
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