UNITED NATIONS: SERVICE VISIBILITY

Role: Led service blueprint workshops, conducted research, and designed the web experience for the team.
Team: Manager, Content Writer, Technologist
Timeline: 6 months
Organization: United Nations, Information Management Team
Impact: Portal launched on the UN intranet, consolidating services for staff across the Secretariat

The UN Information Management Team had a lot to offer — consulting, tools, and resources for staff across the Secretariat. The challenge was visibility.

I joined as an intern to help fix that. Six months later, we had a launched portal that brought everything into one place.

 

THE PROCESS

To understand the IM team's services, products, and clients, I started by conducting a usability test — acting as a potential client navigating every IMT touchpoint across 6 UN organizational intranets. I wanted to see the team the way their clients saw them before talking to anyone.

I initiated one-on-one meetings with my manager to understand how the team fits within the larger organization, asking questions like: Who are our clients? Which sites do people go through during the day? How do we make an impact?

I also took the initiative to sit in on client meetings — listening and observing how IMT actually delivers its services firsthand.

research observation

Along the way, I documented what I was seeing across the intranet:

  • Unclear user journey

  • Scattered and uncategorized resources and accomplishments

  • Lack of web presence and points of contact

  • No connection between entry points to the team's page

  • Inconsistent project naming

  • Redundant service request processes.

SERVICE BLUEPRINT WORKSHOPS

To verify my understanding of the problems and go deeper into how the IMT operates, I proposed using a service blueprint as the analysis method. It would create visibility across the full service flow, identify weaknesses holistically, and get the whole team aligned.

I led a remote workshop with a team of four on Miro, mapping the user journey, touchpoints, frontstage and backstage actions, partners, and critical moments — from Aware all the way to Leave.

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Remote service blueprint workshop with Miro

INSIGHTS

The final service blueprint refined the service mission statement, client journey, interactions, touchpoints, and supporting processes, while identifying key accessibility moments and enhancing service awareness.

Three priority areas emerged:

1. Manage products, services, and clients — gather and interlink all IMT work in one place, embed visible contact information across every touchpoint

2. Improve service flow — streamline how clients request and receive consulting

3. Attract more clients — embed searchable keywords and more entry points across the organization's intranet

 

The solution

With the priorities clear, we aligned on building a service portfolio website — a single place where clients could find the team's services, tools, and resources, request consulting, and make contact. One entry point for everything.

 

DESIGN PRINCIPLE

  • Clear Information Hierarchy

  • Accessible To All IM Resources

  • Easy Navigation

  • Professional and Friendly

  • Easy To Contact IMT

  • Flexible For Future Changes

 

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

I designed the IA to directly address what was missing: clear navigation, organized content, and logical groupings that matched how clients actually think about their needs

 

WIREFRAMES

From the IA, I moved into wireframing on Sketch — designing the layout and interaction flow for each section of the portal.

Screen Shot 2021-02-14 at 2.19.14 PM.png
 

THE PORTAL

The web experience launched on the UN intranet. It consolidated all of IMT's services, tools, ongoing projects, and contact information in one place — making the team visible and accessible to staff across the Secretariat. The goal was to make sure people could find them. Now they could.

 

reflection

User Testing — To understand in depth how did people navigate through the web pages and find information?

Visualization — How might I have made the experience feel more intuitive and engaging?

Data — How might back-end data from PowerBI reveal how clients are actually using the portal — and what to improve next?

Reach — How might embedding IMT's searchable keywords and entry points more deeply across the UN intranet bring the service to people who don't know they need it yet?