Sector sites
Empowering Expertise: Swift Insight, Swift Impact
Building a one-stop shop to accelerate consultant’s expertise and expand their network on complex topics
Context
At the firm, projects would constantly come up to consultants, requiring fast familiarization with new and complex topics, preparation of compelling presentations, additional support gathering, and the recruitment of the right experts across multiple industries and sectors.
From reports, data and analytics, in-depth research materials, events and communities, to connecting with seasoned experts, the new sites were tailored to be a centralized repository of knowledge to equip practitioners with the best and most current knowledge available, internal or external, in a robust platform to get smart quickly and make an impactful contribution to client engagements.
I was the design lead for the project, being responsible for crafting the UX, UI and working with other designers to come up with better solutions for the tools in the suite.
Key principles
One-Stop Knowledge Hub
A single destination for everything related to the practice, providing easy access to all.
Rapid Information Access
Designed to allow users to find needed materials within three minutes of site entry.
Community Engagement
Encourages active collaboration, enhancing networking and collective learning.
Thought Leadership
Showcases expert insights and fosters progressive ideas and professional development.
Seamless Site Management
Administration made easy, with data visualization and custom dashboards.
A powerful content library
The firm’s reputation as a market leader is well-founded, particularly due to its extensive knowledge database, which encompasses insights from thousands of prior engagements and top-tier materials.
On the sector sites, practitioners can easily access a diverse range of knowledge materials. Whether they’re seeking documents, expert opinions, data, insights, or presentations, they can quickly become proficient on any topic. Advanced search and filtering capabilities streamline the process, enabling them to pinpoint the most pertinent information for their immediate needs.
Moreover, valuable insights from past projects can be leveraged; practitioners have the ability to contact original authors for further collaboration or advice on related subjects.
A comprehensive management system
Our management system empowers site administrators to independently oversee all aspects of the website. They can efficiently manage content including documents, people, experts, events, and articles. Additionally, admins have the capability to add new members, moderate community interactions, and manage critical communication features like First Alerts.
Integrated into this system are comprehensive dashboards that provide administrators with in-depth usage statistics. These dashboards display metrics such as uploads, downloads, user activity by country, and more, offering valuable insights into how the site is used. This data helps administrators identify areas of the site that may need enhancement, track user feedback, and optimize the overall user experience. This holistic view ensures that administrators can maintain the platform effectively, making data-driven decisions to continuously improve the site’s functionality and responsiveness to user needs.
Knowledge finding made easy
The site guides users through every step of finding the right material, resource, or an expert, whether they are is looking for introductory materials or for advanced, complex solutions.
The Collections feature organizes materials by use case, category, or concept, simplifying the search.
Quick and relevant results are at practitioners’ fingertips with the Materials Fast Finder, without the need for extensive searches.
The site simplifies finding, connecting with, and recruiting top industry experts, allowing users to quickly identify the right expert through First Alerts or direct contact.
The forum promotes engagement and provides access to experts active in relevant discussions.
Support at every step of the journey
Our philosophy dictates that practitioners can locate the content they need within three minutes. If they are unable to through the initial tools like search, materials fast finder, or featured collections, our powerful support hub comes into play. This hub offers multiple avenues for assistance, enabling users to easily reach out for help.
Users can connect with support through a variety of channels, including direct contact with a representative, engaging with our responsive chatbot, or making a call. If what they want isn’t available, they can also submit a new research request, or ask the Practice team to craft a Letter of Proposal for a client.
Each option is geared towards ensuring practitioners can quickly find the necessary resources to succeed in their endeavors.
Outcomes
The project was an ongoing initiative that lasted for a couple of years and which I was part of, constantly refining, building new features and conducting user-centered workshop and research to help drive our initiatives and resources.
It was a constant exercise of coming up with features based on requests and our own insights, creating mockups and prototypes, presenting and testing with users and stakeholders. We also kept the development team involved in the conversations, so nothing was being built in silos.
We had monthly townhalls where 100+ people participated, providing valuable feedback, reporting bugs and voicing their recommendations for the product.
The suite of products had a constant increase in user engagement, with practitioners demonstrating a marked improvement in preparation time for client meetings, and impact delivery.
The feedback from the consultants and managers was overwhelmingly positive, highlighting the ease of finding information and the value of having a one-stop-shop for sector knowledge.