eBay intranet modernization
Revitalizing an aging internal platform to become more visually pleasing and up-to-date with modern UX best practices
Role: UX Content Design Manager
Year: 2023-2024
Skills used: Information architecture, wireframing, UX research, team management, project roadmapping
eBay's intranet platform (People Central) was difficult to navigate due to years of being designed by HR specialists, not UX designers.
This platform served as the go-to destination for any HR-related employee needs. For years, users expressed frustration over the site’s inconsistent design, difficult-to-understand navigation, and confusing instructions. This led to an increase in case load for HR professionals across eBay’s global employee base.
My approach was to completely overhaul the intranet’s information architecture and create a design system.
Implementing UX best practices across the entire intranet would not only create a consistent experience no matter where users went, I could also address issues our HR clients had in order to help reduce case load for them.
Kicking off the project
I started by working with our analytics team to find out which pages on the intranet were visited the most. I also talked with our global HR partners to learn about what were their largest case volume drivers. For projects brought directly to our team, I partnered with our UX researcher to learn more about these pages.
Once I knew what was on deck for a redesign, I worked directly with our group’s director to roadmap our projects plus define roles and responsibilities for our team.
Client management and leadership
At any given moment, I was working on either smaller day-to-day design tasks for clients or leading larger redesign projects. Regardless of size, each required consistent conversation with HR partners to assist with understanding their goals, the needs of the users of their individual pages, and managing the project.
While our team had a dedicated researcher, two visual designers, copywriter, and an engineer, we did not have a project manager. It was my responsibility to manage all my projects from client intake, project scoping, defining deliverables, design, and execution. I also assigned projects to my team and stepped in whenever escalations were needed on projects.
Developing a design system
Despite eBay's intranet being built with a WYSIWYG editor, the platform lacked design consistency. I was charged with laying the groundwork for our design system within this editor's constraints, enabling rapid iteration and execution of custom designs by our team. My role involved both leveraging the editor's capabilities and innovating with custom design concepts to elevate our design and engineering prowess beyond the platform's basic functionalities.
Not only that, I also developed project intake forms which helped our clients give us consistent information about their redesign needs. This forms gave us the ability to quickly kick off new projects as it gave us the scope of the redesign, the time frame for execution, the primary call to action, and the project RASCI.
Before and after wireframes
I spearheaded the creation of our design system and led multiple projects to develop wireframes for redesigns, drawing on insights from client meetings, project intake forms, and established best practices.
My process involved crafting initial wireframes, which I then passed to both our visual designers and an external design vendor for high-resolution development. Following this, I directed design review sessions for feedback and revisions. The finalized wireframes underwent a thorough QA check with our engineering team, ensuring flawless implementation. The accompanying visuals contrast the original page designs with my updated wireframes, showcasing the impactful transformations achieved.
Revamping a page’s original design structure
Simplifying a complicated page desgin
Overhauling a page in need of a redesign
Developing multiple concept designs