I spent the summer between my first and second years at UMSI interning at the Great Lakes Commission, an interstate agency devoted to protecting the Great Lakes. The GLC main office used a file management system centered around a local network drive called the 'N' Drive. The office and IT managers believed that the N Drive system was unpopular amongst the employees and wanted me to figure out what exactly people didn’t (and did) like about it and then recommend improvements or an alternative.
Project Overview
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Employer name: Great Lakes Commission
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My roles: User research
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Tools/skills utilized: Contextual inquiry, user interviews, user surveys, affinity mapping
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The key problems to solve: What tasks did people use the N Drive for? What were people’s favorite things about the current system, and what were their biggest frustrations with it?
Observations & Research
Gathering Data
After getting an overview of the system from the IT manager and spending some time poking around the file structure, I drafted a set of interview questions and interviewed 2 program directors and 3 project managers, making sure to have them physically show me the things they worked on rather than just talk about them.
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My first interview seemed to validate the beliefs the managers had that the N Drive was disliked by most people in the office, with the program director lamenting how hard it was to find things on it
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However, the other people I interviewed all actually liked the N Drive, the only major issue they had with it being that their folders kept getting cluttered with old files from completed projects because there was no set protocol for how to deal with them
Based on what I learned from the interviews, next I wrote up a survey that I sent out to the entire office asking about the issues that had stood out to me the most as well as about people’s overall feelings about the current system, and found that what I'd learned from my interviews matched up with the overall views of the office quite well.
Data Interpretation
I then wrote down all the most pertinent points from the interviews, the survey, and my observations, and set to work making an affinity map, which I used to distill my findings into four main points (to read it in detail and see specifics, please see this text version I typed up: Affinity wall (text version).pdf):
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Major changes to the current file management system would not be well-received
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Despite smaller differences, people’s work styles had certain broad similarities that any new protocols or tools should aim to capitalize on
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The lack of standardized naming conventions and folder structure rarely caused any issues for most people
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Everyone would work to keep their folders cleaner if they had the time to do so
Finally, I discussed my findings and thoughts with the IT manager, and we worked together to come up with a solution that could be realistically implemented. I then gave a brief presentation to the office going over what I’d done and what changes would be made, which can be viewed here: N Drive presentation.pdf.
Project Reflection
Outcome
After discussing my affinity map with the IT manager, we agreed that the N Drive should be kept as the main file management system. We decided to purchase a storage plan on Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage to use for archiving all old materials and designated one person to be in charge of moving items marked for archiving to the cloud so that everyone in the office wouldn't have to learn to use the new system. The office would hold a ‘digital cleanup day’ every 6 months, with time set aside specifically for people to go through their files and take care of things that are old and ready to be archived. Finally, I wrote up an ‘N Drive Best Practices’ sheet featuring softer recommendations (not to be enforced) on file naming and folder structure, which you can read here: N Drive usage best practices.pdf.
Challenges
While it was fairly similar to the contextual inquiry project I'd done in my first semester (indeed, my experience on that project was the main reason they hired me), the idea of doing it all largely by myself was pretty daunting at first, but once I actually got going I started to feel more confident, and they were very pleased with my deliverables. It was definitely a valuable learning experience for me, particularly as my first time working on a project outside of an academic setting.