Intranet Usability Guidelines: Findings from User Testing of 42 Intranets Vol. 03: HR Benefits, Forms, and Employee Self-Service Features

Part of the Intranet Usability Guidelines Series

The more employees are aware of the benefits the organization offers them the happier they will be. Organizations have a myriad of forms and related processes, which great intranets support with automated workflows. Intranets can do the work for users: filling in as much of the form as possible based on known information about the employee, routing the forms to the next place they need to go, and making it possible to track them.

This 217-page report contains 130 design recommendations based on our usability research. Discussions and 163 screenshot illustrations supplement the findings.

Topics

• Improving the user experience of common employee self-service tasks
  • Human resources benefits information
  • Updating personal information
• Forms, processes, and workflow
  • Forms versus the helpline
  • Forms online
  • Form design
  • Organizing forms
  • Auto-populating form fields
  • Form design and field layout
  • HTML, PDF, and other downloadable forms
• Usability best practices
  • Timesheet reporting
  • Expense reporting
  • Meeting rooms: information and scheduling
  • Technology help desk
  • Human resources information
  • Training: information and sign-up
  • Job postings: reviewing and applying

Research Method

The information in these reports is based on three separate rounds of user research with company employees as participants. We used two different research methods:

• One-on-one usability testing
• Field studies, during which we observed employees as they went about their normal work

Hundreds of people tested 42 intranets. The studies took place in the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, United Arab Emirates, and China (Hong Kong).