This date is arbitrary, as it took much longer than this and the deployment was sporadic, but it took place from roughly December 2017 to the early part of 2020.

We embarked on a project to re-imagine what EPRI.com was and create a new experience for our members and the public. 

It's still a work in progress now, but the monumental technological task was to get off of a SharePoint stack and implement a new CMS. This meant we had to rethink everything; from how to secure sensitive items to what a list of links looks like. 

For this project, I served many different roles: Information Architect, UX Researcher, UI Designer, Storyteller, Part-Time Project Manager, and UX Writer are a few I claim.

I formally interviewed internal stakeholders, customers and led UX sessions to understand what were the most important issues to address before we even started down a monumental path. 

I then met with our larger team and helped devise a site architecture and technology plan. We went through ideation rounds of wireframes and middle fidelity mocks, gathered feedback and solidified the UI.

I created our own EPRI Design System based on the Material Specification,  wrote stories in JIRA, provided Functional Specification Documents, and performed quality assurance testing in various phases of the project.

The Problem

The concept was to take two separate websites - one public and one private - and combine them into one. EPRI serves the public as well as their Member companies, and the disparity between the two sites was monumental. 

We needed to figure out a way to show pages that weren’t public previously to the public, but still protect sensitive information.

Gathering Insights

We had our assumptions, but needed to find out what was important to both our internal users and our customers.

I interviewed over 50 internal users, which allowed me to arrive at some common issues. I then led several small sessions with our Members to understand what their pain-points were, then took those same questions and asked our EPRI staff what their opinions were.

From there I took the data and created a unified visualization to illustrate where the problem areas were and what the scope should be.

Ideation

Sometimes this is the fun part. It can also be a point in the project that causes significant problems if the technology and requirements are not solidified. 

As the Information Architect for this project, it was clear to me: there were so many areas where we could utilize components that it only made sense to work from a component level and re-use these components with specific configurations where necessary.

However, when you are working with several different stakeholders who have differing agendas, experience, and understanding of UX, it makes the path forward unclear. We went through several rounds of ideation, with different stakeholders, staff and management. 

I first started with sketches on a whiteboard with notes. I then would take photos of those sketches and type up the notes. We would have meetings to discuss those, and as those were agreed upon, I would then refine those into wireframes and then eventually into mid fidelity mockups to get feedback, with the end result being high-fidelity designs for the Developers to build from. Those high-fidelity designs were created in Sketch and posted to InVision to utilize its Inspector tool.

As the situation stabilized and the restrictions became clear, we ultimately were able to solidify the requirements and then craft a solidified UI.

Validation

As we moved ahead, we were able to create our mid-fidelity prototypes for testing. We opened up our environment internally first to a select set of users. One of the first features we created was a feedback component that we utilized to collect feedback on an individual page level. We then were able to open it up to a subset of our customers for their feedback. Based on that feedback, we were able to hone some of our features and finish sections of the site incrementally.

After a rocky start, we arrived to the finish line. It was a clear example of how an idea can only get you so far, and that a project has to have the technology and security requirements solidified before work can begin. Having too many stakeholders will result in a less than ideal experience, needless rework and a lot of questions.