NBN Procurement
Portal Re-design
Making procurement simple for everyone in NBN
Overview
Launched in 2009, the National Broadband Network (NBN) aims to bridge the digital divide and improve digital connectivity across Australia.

NBN sought a review of their Procurement intranet portal, as 87% of purchase orders (1,481 in total) were raised by 482 infrequent or new buyers across 51 teams. These users engage with the procurement process less than once per month, yet essential support information was outdated and scattered across over 15 outdated SharePoint hub pages, making it difficult to locate and creating a frustrating purchasing experience.

In this project, I provided recommendations and redesigned the Procurement portal to address key pain points in the purchasing journey. The result was a simplified, all-in-one page within the Procurement portal, offering easy-to-find information and streamlined processes to make purchasing simple for everyone in NBN.
ROLE
UX/UI Designer
Project Lead
DEVICES
Desktop
TIMELINE
May - August 2023
The problem
For NBN employees who rarely engage with Procurement processes, the purchasing journey is often confusing and frustrating.

When these "infrequent buyers" encounter issues, locating answers on internal platforms is challenging, often leading them to seek help from more experienced colleagues. This increases the workload for those familiar with the process, creating inefficiencies across teams.
🕸 Difficult to navigate

The current procurement portal on Sharepoint is difficult to navigate due to the illogical placement and hierarchy of information.

⌛ Outdated content

A growing percentage of content is outdated and irrelevant, leading to a drop in platform confidence and engagement.

🔍 Hard to find information

Links and pages to relevant information can be buried many clicks deep in a page, causing a  hurdle for users searching for quick answers.

🤔 Cognitive overload

The procurement process is convoluted with many steps. Search function yields too many results leading to cognitive overload for users.

Project approach and strategy
In response to the pain points, I developed a structured approach to redesign the Procurement portal. The design process was organised into distinct phases, starting with pre-discovery to gather initial insights, followed by discovery sessions to understand user needs and pain points.

I conducted in-depth research and iterative testing to validate design decisions, ensuring the new portal would be intuitive and accessible. Each phase, from initial artifact gathering to usability testing, contributed to a streamlined solution to improve the procurement experience for NBN employees.
Project timeline from 14 Aug to 13 Oct. Pre-discovery, discovery, design, test, and iterate.
Project Timeline, NBN Procurement Portal Re-design
PROCESS DEEP DIVE
Understanding stakeholder needs and requirements
1:1 Stakeholder interviews
Objective: To build a shared understanding of the problem space, to understand stakeholder roles and areas of expertise
I conducted interviews with 8 stakeholders from procurement, accounts payable, finance, and SharePoint administration. These discussions helped us to form initial assumptions and hypotheses about the current SharePoint experience, covering areas such as content hierarchy, content relevance, user journey, and navigation.
Discovery workshop
Objective: To validate initial assumptions and hypotheses, refine project direction and prioritise areas for user research
I facilitated a collaborative workshop where stakeholders discuss the initial assumptions and hypotheses identified during 1:1 stakeholder interviews. Through collective input and stakeholder voting, we prioritised key hypotheses which informed the direction for user research.
Project timeline from 14 Aug to 13 Oct. Pre-discovery, discovery, design, test, and iterate.
Discovery Workshop: Assumption and Hypothesis Mapping
Voting considerations in the workshop included:
  • Desirability:
    ‍Does it address real user need? Would it provide a positive user experience and solve user pain points?
  • Viability:
    From a business point of view, is it financially feasible or economically sustainable? Does it align with nbn's business value or goals?
  • Feasibility:
    Is it technically possible to implement? Do we have the time, resources and capabilities to implement it?
Concept A focuses on pushing culture to the fore. Concept B is inspired by family of brands. Concept C is more functional and centred around application progress.
Through this workshop, it was identified that the most pressing concerns revolved around Information Architecture (IA) and content structure. This exercise helped us prioritise these areas in our research efforts.
Understanding user frustrations
Portal review:
Objective: To assess the existing user journey and identify improvement areas
Conducted an in-depth analysis of documents provided by NBN, examined the platform’s structure, reviewed access patterns, and analysed usage data to pinpoint the most frequently accessed and valued pages.
User interviews
Objective: To identify the needs, pain points, and challenges of nbn users and understand their overall experiences with the SharePoint portal
We conducted one-on-one remote interviews with 7 NBN employees (namely, "infrequent buyers"). Insights from these interviews provided a foundation for informing improvements to NBN’s SharePoint portal design.
Project timeline from 14 Aug to 13 Oct. Pre-discovery, discovery, design, test, and iterate.
Quotes uncovered from user interviews
Synthesis: All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and uploaded to Dovetail, where transcripts were tagged to uncover common themes and extract key insights.
Project timeline from 14 Aug to 13 Oct. Pre-discovery, discovery, design, test, and iterate.
Common themes tagged on Dovetail
Overall, NBN employees encountered significant difficulties in locating information on the SharePoint sites due to: Outdated content, lack of clear logic and categorisation in content hierarchy, use of ambiguous procurement-specific jargon, and internal permission settings that prevent access to certain content.
Project timeline from 14 Aug to 13 Oct. Pre-discovery, discovery, design, test, and iterate.
Pain points encountered by NBN employees
Redesigning the information architecture (IA)
Comprehensive IA review
I conducted an extensive IA review and proposed a revised structure aimed at addressing key user pain points identified in our research. Analytics, including click data, guided the approach to revise IA. I removed duplicate pages, clarified ambiguous headings, and reorganised content into relevant categories.
Project timeline from 14 Aug to 13 Oct. Pre-discovery, discovery, design, test, and iterate.
Proposed IA documented on Airtable, including recommendations on page relocation and relabeling
Through multiple revision rounds, informed by stakeholder feedback and a card sorting exercise on Optimal Workshop, we developed a refined IA. This revised structure served as the foundational blueprint for the final designs presented at the conclusion of this project.
Project timeline from 14 Aug to 13 Oct. Pre-discovery, discovery, design, test, and iterate.
Revised IA for NBN SharePoint sites
Outcome
A centralised, single point of access to procurement resources
Consolidated and reorganised information from over 15 pages into one central hub
Enhanced comprehension and transparency of the procurement process
Presented information in a clear, chronological order to simplify the procurement journey
Simplified navigation and improved findability
Eliminated redundant quick links and duplicated pages, reorganised content and refined page labels. Simplified IA and reduced friction points for intuitive navigation.
Managed user expectations and reduced frustrations
Clear expectations were set though guiding tips and instructions, so users are informed equipped to navigate the procurement process smoothly.
Challenges and reflections
Design constraints within SharePoint
One of the significant challenges was working within the technical limitations of SharePoint, which constrained certain design features and impacted the user experience.

To navigate these limitations, we prioritised UX adjustments that could optimise the existing functionality and explored creative workarounds to enhance usability within the platform's constraints.
Differing stakeholder opinions
With varied priorities across procurement, finance, and other departments, aligning on a unified vision required extensive communication and collaboration.

This challenged was addressed through multiple workshops, weekly updates, and regular check-ins to ensure all voices were heard and aligned.
Conclusion
NBN Procurement SharePoint portal’s redesign highlighted the importance of aligning platform design with the real-world needs of diverse user groups. Through comprehensive user research, collaborative workshops, and a carefully revised IA, we developed a solution aimed at improving content accessibility and user satisfaction. While SharePoint’s limitations posed challenges, we optimised the portal within these boundaries.

Ultimately, the redesigned portal serves as a more user-friendly, efficient tool that supports procurement processes across departments. Moving forward, continued alignment and proactive content management will be essential to ensure the portal remains valuable to users in the long term.
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