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Ontario Public Service: Redesigning an intranet via a data-driven approach

Ontario Public Service (OPS) has redesigned its custom intranet to improve usability, accessibility, engagement with content, and site performance for 65,000 government employees. The team undertook an extensive user research exercise, involving multiple data inputs, and carried out several rounds of user testing and design iterations throughout the project.

The team made multiple design tweaks to the homepage, all led by a data-driven approach. Project highlights include a new homepage apps-launcher, a comprehensive approach to improving accessibility and achieving WCAG 2.2 compliance, and moving all users over to Microsoft Entra ID. Overall, the design changes have resulted in a tangible increase in page views, satisfaction rates, and positive feedback from users.

Why this won a Silver award

  • We love the strong commitment to user research and making data-driven design decisions, with every improvement rooted in user research.
  • We like the range of user research techniques and data sources used to inform the project, including the innovative FigJam design session.
  • The approach to driving accessibility is excellent, for example, working with internal experts and embedding accessibility into design processes.
  • There is impressive stakeholder management going on behind the scenes, across a highly complex organisational structure.
  • There’s some strong execution in potentially tricky areas of the project, such as getting multiple contributors to update the Tailwind code and moving users to Entra ID at scale.
  • We like the unwavering commitment to user testing, design iterations, and continual improvement during and after the project.
  • There’s a solid increase in page views.

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