Defining UNICEF ShareX with Design

UNICEF, also known as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, is a global organization dedicated to improving the lives of children worldwide. It was established in 1946 to provide emergency aid to children and mothers affected by World War II.

Since then, UNICEF's mission has expanded to encompass a broad range of areas that impact children's lives, making it an essential component of the United Nations system.

Recognizing the crucial role of knowledge, the nonprofit created ShareX, a knowledge management system designed to make its vast information accessible to everyone.To enhance ShareX's user experience, UNICEF partnered with us to conduct extensive research to better understand users' needs and redesign the platform.

Our research process allowed us to identify areas where this KMS could be improved, and we made data-driven changes to make ShareX better for everyone. As a result, we were able to speed up the process of design and make critical improvements, to the platform.

Getting to know the client and the platform

During the initial calls with the client, it became clear that UNICEF was struggling with scattered valuable information across different websites, leading to difficulties in finding what they and their users needed.

The stakeholders shared that — UNICEF faces challenges in making sure that their partners can easily access their technical content and find relevant information. During emergencies, managing a large volume of content becomes a priority. To make it easier to access this information, UNICEF is creating a central place to find technical knowledge about children's issues.

They are also working to make it easier to find products made at the CO/RO level. UNICEF wants to make it easier to find shared materials and reduce the need for multiple sites. Simplifying the content search process across platforms is crucial for improving user experiences and making sure important information can be found quickly.

The kick-off further helped to identify three main problems — information scattered everywhere, lots of repetition, and systems not working together.

With these insights in mind, we created a custom research plan that included fundamental information such as why we chose a specific research methodology and how it would be beneficial.

we started the project by working collaboratively with the client to deliver a simple, centralized, and efficient knowledge management system.

Identifying core problems and user needs

1. Workshops

The Design Workshops were planned carefully to align with the platform's vision and included the Business and On-Field teams from UNICEF. The aim was to empathize with the users, what ShareX should look and feel like, and gain other important insights.

During Workshop 1, we examined business insights and understood users' needs using value proposition mapping. The focus was to strike a balance between what the business aims for and what users expect. Workshop 2 focused on empathy-building exercises, like creating personas and mapping emotional journeys, to gain a deeper understanding of the user experience.

Insights and Outcomes

The workshops helped identify the needs and motivations of primary and secondary users. This led to a better understanding of users' needs in line with the non-profit's goals. Clear statements were created to define Share X's personality, functions, and how it should make people feel.

These statements served as a roadmap for Share X's future, ensuring that it grows in the right direction while adhering to its goals and values.

Affinity Mapping

Affinity mapping was a highly effective tool that helped us organize and categorize the main ideas by theme. It provided a comprehensive framework for the project, consisting of three axes:

1. Functional to Emotional Design
2. Fundamental to Distinguishable attributes
3. Assumed to Absolute aspects

The first axis, Functional to Emotional design, ranges from practical to emotional design. This axis ensured that the design decisions we made were aligned with the project's overall objectives and priorities while considering the emotional and psychological needs of the users.

The second axis, Fundamental to Distinguishable attributes, spans from basic to unique features. This axis helped us prioritize the key features and elements essential for the success of ShareX and ensured that we focused on the most important aspects of the project.

The third axis, Assumed to Absolute aspects, transitions from things we're guessing about to things we're sure of. This axis helped us gain insights into the project and identify areas that required further research and investigation.

The insights we gained from affinity mapping provided guidance and direction, ensuring that our design decisions were in line with the project's overall objectives and priorities. It also helped us prioritize the key features and elements essential for the success of ShareX.

Insights and Outcomes

The insights from the research helped us create a comprehensive UX strategy that was aligned with both the users' expectations and UNICEF's objectives. Our strategy was based on four key actionable insights.

1. We aimed to strike a balance between user interest and providing clear and important information.
2. We ensured that the platform's purpose and value were easily understandable for everyone.
3. We made sure that the platform was accessible to people from all backgrounds.
4. We tailored the content based on user's location and needs to make it globally relevant.

We kept in mind these insights while crafting the design that would meet the expectations and goals of the primary and secondary users of the Share X platform. As a result of our efforts, our strategy and design principles were successfully aligned with the objectives of both the users and UNICEF.

Shaping solutions

We decided to revamp ShareX and introduce some key features as part of our strategy. These include:

1. Advanced Search and Robust Filtering functionality to enable users to navigate multiple sites with ease, using advanced filtering options.
2. Customizing the navigation to allow for seamless movement between global and country-level micro-sites, making it more accessible for users.
3. To improve content organization, implement a clear and simple labeling system. This was to enable users to differentiate between current and historical content, and we also documented revisions to facilitate this differentiation even further.

Validation and iteration

Throughout the design process, we engaged in a continuous journey of iteration and validation. Collaborative sessions were conducted every week with participation from both developers and stakeholders. Our key priority was to ensure that the designs remained technically feasible, to speed up the delivery process.

Through this collaborative effort, we were able to create an exceptional user experience while remaining aligned with both the user requirements and UNICEF's objectives.

The impact

The key to Share X's success is its user-centered design. This platform prioritizes the user's needs, demonstrating how good design can simplify knowledge management, making it more efficient and effective. The backbone of good design is always good research. By paying attention to users, putting ourselves in their shoes, and making data-driven decisions, we can create purposeful experiences that can help make a real difference in the world.

Download our discovery playbook with actionable research templates!

Dive deeper into our successful collaboration with UNICEF. Read the complete case study — Building Drupal-powered Knowledge Management Platform for UNICEF

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