Ford Motor Company
Designing an internal communication platform for Ford employees to coordinate events and celebrate peers.
Role
User Research, Product Design, Usability Testing, Design Systems, and Interactive Prototyping
Context
Timeline: Jan '24 - May '24
Type: Product Design via Purdue Design Studio
Team
Client: Juliet Jimenez, Lukas Marinovic
Team: Claire O’Malley, Damaris Adeniji, Erika Suin Shin, Isaac Cheung, Joe Maddux, Joel Archer, Kavni Shah, Mahi Tripatai, Prithvi Manjunatha, Tejasvi Bhagwatkar
Outcome
Reduced dependency on external tools - Proposed platform designed to replace Ford's reliance on a paid third-party solution cutting significant expenses.
Validated core flows - Board creation, contribution via shared link, and board discovery were all tested and refined against real user tasks, tailoring the platform to Ford employee's specific use cases.
Interactive prototype - Delivered high-fidelity prototypes and a scalable design system
Customized for Ford employees' needs - A simplified 2-column structure based on direct usability testing feedback from target users.
Problem Space
How Might We Build a Platform for Ford Employees Prioritizing their Varied Needs to Collaborate and Celebrate their Peers?
Context
FordLabs partners with teams across Ford to solve internal challenges using a lean, human-centered approach. This project set out to design a communication platform, a digital space for Ford employees to celebrate peers' milestones, coordinate events, and reduce reliance on external tools through an interactive prototype and a scalable design system.
Key Pain Points
User problem - Ford employees rely on an external platform to celebrate peers and coordinate events — a solution that doesn't scale across teams of different sizes and needs.
Business problem - The cost of maintaining an external, third-party platform is high, and it limits Ford's ability to tailor the experience to its own culture and workflows.
The challenge - Design a single platform flexible enough to serve teams of varying sizes and use cases, while giving employees a meaningful way to celebrate accomplishments and organize events.
Solution
Proposed Design Addressing the Needs of Ford Employees
The prototypes below are the result of further exploration of the solution space, iterated and built using AI-assisted coding. They are an improved version of the high-fidelity prototypes handed off to the developers at Ford.
Research
Understanding the Social Culture at Ford and their Needs for Collaboration
We conducted secondary research to get an understanding of stakeholders’ work culture, user requirements, and identify features for the platform tailored to the corporate work environment.
Secondary Research - Highlights
Understanding the Platform Currently used at Ford and Other Existing Solutions
Ford's teams currently use KudoBoard, a paid platform for peer recognition, to create interactive digital boards for messages, photos, and other content.
Key Features of KudoBoard Software
Competitive analysis of Keka, Airspeed, and Celebrations for Microsoft, three of the top-performing platforms in this space, surfaced the features that mattered most.
Keka
Celebrations by Airspeed for Slack
Celebrations by Microsoft
Three requirements stood out across the research:
An integrated calendar highlighting current and upcoming events
A point-based system for creating boards, accessible to admins and team managers
Flexibility to send and receive gift cards within celebratory posts
Primary Research
For our primary research, we interviewed stakeholders at Ford to get insights into their experience with KudoBoard and identify their needs for the platform. Analyzing the interview data using an affinity map to helped us identify themes which were translated into “how might we” statements for further ideation. A prioritization matrix was developed to identify potential solutions and prioritize them for the initial proposal.
Interviewing Users and Affinity Mapping Data to gather Insights
Goal #1
Understand how FordLabs employees currently use KudoBoard.
Goal #2
Identify needs for virtual celebrations and uncover pain points in the existing process.
Goal #3
Gain insight into other platforms used at Ford, such as Zoom, Slack, and Webex.
Do Now
How might we create an easy-to-navigate interface?
How might we enable self-expression while still addressing all user needs?
Do Next
How might we efficiently communicate event reminders?
How might we decrease post overload within channels?
Do Later
How might we encourage employees to actively engage with boards?
How might we encourage more personalized gift-giving?
Ideation
Brainstorming Ideas Through Iterative Wireframing
Information Architecture
We organized our prioritized research themes into an information architecture for the platform, refining it iteratively as patterns emerged.
Exploring Existing Solutions through Competitor Analysis
Using the architecture as a foundation, we sketched and wireframed the Home Page, Posts Page, and Create New Board flow focused on clear content structure and usability.
Iteratively Prototyping Solutions Based on Usability Test Data
Usability Test 1 - Layout
The original three-column layout overwhelmed users given the product's use case. We simplified it to a two-column layout.
Usability Test 2 - Task Flow
We tested the revised layout using a refined protocol across three core tasks, each with supporting sub-tasks:
Creating a new board
Submitting a card to an existing board via a shared link
Finding an existing board among all active boards
Design System
Create Board Page
Posts Page
Home Page
Design
Further Exploration of the Solution Space using AI-assisted Prototyping
Home Page
Two-column layout with a left sidebar (For You, Calendar, Upcoming) for quick access to core functionality. A search bar sits at the top of the main content view, with board templates displayed directly below.
Celebration Board Page
A completed board created for an employee's birthday. Supports multiple media types - images, GIFs, audio, and text - giving users flexibility in how they contribute.
Create Board PAge
Users can search, browse, and select from pre-designed templates for events like birthdays, milestones, and professional occasions. Creators can select contributors for targeted engagement, and save boards as drafts or send them out immediately.
