The infamous developer-designer relationship doesn’t need to be toxic. Design and development teams should approach collaboration as coowners of the product experience.
Noteworthy highlights from Intranet Design Annual winners in 2023 include supporting the return to work and hybrid working, fostering employee growth and development, utilizing AI effectively, and minimizing the need for employees to leave the intranet to access additional tools.
Winners of the 2023 Intranet Design Annual span 5 countries and 6 industries. Average team sizes were larger this year compared to those of years past, while collaboration with external agencies played a significant role in executing successful intranet redesigns.
Scaling discovery work in Agile helps teams plan appropriately scoped activities around targeted questions and probable assumptions instead of arbitrary sprint timeframes.
Still challenged by the global pandemic but unwavering, intranet-design teams committed to accessibility and inclusion. Empathy and logic prevailed, resulting in winning intranets that are accepting and supportive of all employees equally.
The 2022 Intranet Design Annual winning teams were small relative to the size of their organizations, yet they produced excellent designs quickly. Teams continued to partner with outside consultants for support in development, project management, design, research, and other areas. A wide variety of industries from only four countries were represented this year.
Along with design and development work, research efforts need to be represented in an Agile backlog to enable teams to focus on continuously learning about users throughout the project.
Succinctly documenting the right details in key places helps Agile teams avoid information overload. When UX documentation is skipped or disorganized, teams waste time trying to find or remember information instead of improving the product.
User-story maps help Agile teams define what to build and maintain visibility for how it all fits together. They enable user-centered conversations, collaboration, and feature prioritization to align and guide iterative product development.
User-related questions and assumptions are not tracked throughout a product’s lifecycle, causing misalignment and overconfidence. Documenting these questions and assumptions in a knowledge board differentiates them from real facts.
As part of an Agile team, UX professionals should participate in all Scrum events in order to maintain open communication, influence product success, and productively contribute to the team.