Compass and Usability

In order to get feedback on the usability of Compass and to learn usability guidelines and testing techniques from industry-leading consulting groups, Millennium’s KM group conducted a usability study with the help of an outside expert. The study findings highlighted challenges in three major areas.

Employees could not easily understand what Compass was if they did not already know about it. For example, people did not know what the Compass tab was for, even when they clicked it, and did not realize that Compass was an appropriate vehicle for contributing information, through My Millennium.
There were barriers to publishing information. Employees didn’t want to try an unfamiliar tool without help from IT or a higher level of technical experience. It was found, however, that once the employees were walked through the system, they thought it was extremely valuable.
The final challenge was a design issue. The pages contained too many non- functional icons and logos, the branding was distracting, and each page was visually dominated by links.

Based on the results of this study, a plan was put into place to revise the Compass design and functionality to better serve all user needs. Millennium’s KM group added new headings and fuller explanatory text to help users better and more quickly understand Compass’s functionality around searching and contributing content. It added a single link to FAQ’s that were currently cluttering up the screen. Extra logos were removed, and non-functional icons were turned into links or removed. Millennium also took a closer look at reviving old training programs and has planned for new training opportunities.

Implementation of these changes only took two and a half working days. The design and review process took two full days of elapsed time and a half-day of production time. The result was a significant improvement with a cleaner, simpler look and feel