William Key UX Portfolio | Case Studies: ODNI

ODNI: Redesign and Integrate 9 Independent Websites into 1

The Outcome

I designed an information architecture that is still in use on the ODNI site today which attests to our success in achieving a new integrated design that respected the unique mission of each organization.

The Client

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is the leadership organization managing the 18 agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). Organizational restructuring gave ODNI direct oversight for four Mission Centers and five Offices that were previously independent organizations within the IC.

The Project

The US Public found it difficult to understand the roles and relationships of many IC organizations. Our task was to design a new ODNI website that integrated the stand-alone sites of subordinate Mission Centers, Offices, and Programs. Our design needed to clearly communicate the reporting relationships for these organizations to ODNI as well as their unique mission within the IC.

Our Approach

As the UX Lead, I collaborated closely with the Project Manager, Visual Designers, and Front-End Developer, and with the ODNI’s Public Affairs Officer and CIO. During discovery ODNI staff conveyed their goals and the political sensitivities for this effort.

Given the politics involved, it was important that my meetings with stakeholders demonstrated our respect for their existing sites and services. Prior to interviewing stakeholders from each entity, I created site maps and content inventories for each site to document their types of content, map common information structures, and identify unique features for each site.

During interviews with key stakeholders I focused on their unique mission as well as their business goals, requirements, and constraints that we needed to consider, and the challenges they perceived for integration. In reviewing their site maps I was able to show how their site mapped neatly into my proposed new ODNI site information architecture.

Before designing wireframes for the site layout, I performed a competitive analysis of other foreign intelligence agency public websites to determine if there were useful patterns I could adopt. That understanding for how respected partner agencies presented themselves publicly helped our visual designers translate my wireframes into unique but comparable design comp options for ODNI.

During visual design I contributed feedback for usability, accessibility, and mobile design considerations to ensure a positive cross-platform user experience for the public.

The Challenges

Interagency politics were the most significant hurdle as we negotiated concerns of the agencies’ migration from their established websites to the new ODNI site. Perceived as a hostile takeover by some, our building trust by respecting the unique needs of each entity was critical in gaining support for the new site design.

Given the opportunity, I would have monitored web analytics for the new site and compare them to historical metrics to instill confidence that the public still was able to achieve their goals with the new site design.