9web - Shire plc global intranet redesign project

Shire is a global specialty biopharmaceutical company with major R&D and manufacturing operations in the UK and the United States. We were commissioned to plan and design a new global intranet for the company that went live in early March 2008.

The project began with an brainstorm of ideas from a diverse project team located in both the UK and the United States. The project goals were defined with regionalisation and personalisation of content defined as key success factors for this global intranet (called “Orbit”).

9web were then tasked with the challenge of developing a site structure that worked effectively for employees at all levels, in all locations across the world. Solid information design was crucial and this was developed over a number of workshops (video linked between the UK and the US) with the concept of a “My Orbit” area of the intranet to drive the personalisation and regionalisation required.

The agreed information design was then fed in to an iterative creative design process that began with the presentation of 3 initial design concepts and evolved over a number of design workshops to create a look and feel that followed the brand guidelines for the organisation, looked significantly different to the public facing website (this was important to prevent employee confusion), allowed for the required level of personalisation and regionalisation, worked as an information resource and acted as an application portal for employees to quickly and easily access all Shire related electronic resources.

The agreed design was then taken into XHTML/CSS production with some innovative features to improve the usability of the site implemented using advanced CSS and simple javascript techniques.

The project team are not only delighted with the quality of the information and creative design work, but with the support 9web have given them during the intranet planning, a notoriously difficult process in a diverse, multinational organisation.