Mark A Powell.com

Business purpose: Communicate activities of the Office of Workplace Inclusion; Provide publishing platform for Employee Resource Groups
Audience: Internal employees
Services provided: Information Architecture; Visual design; XHTML Coding; Usability Testing; Accessibility Considerations; Publishing Model

For the Office of Workplace Inclusion I worked closely with the administrator of the site to create a site that can be used for communication both by the office and the Employee Resource Groups. This provided a unique challenge in that the site needed to provide a consistent platform visually and navigationally. In order to accomplish this I used a tab-based navigation for the majority of the site and a left nav for the ERG sites. This way the tabs remained visible and provide an indicator of location, and allowed the ERGs to have a longer navigation scheme.

Because one of the ERGs is a group for disabled employees I worked to create an accessible site. I used high-contrast navigation colors with large target areas. I also employed a text-size switcher that increases type-face size by 50%. Lastly, I employed semantic mark-up with all text-based navigation.

Business purpose: Communicate value and services of the Talent Management department
Audience: Internal employees
Services provided: Visual design

This mock-up was created for the Talent Management group within Medtronic for their intranet site. The design was based on the central element of a tree growing. The tree symbolized the growth of the employee through the organization and their career. Reflecting this theme I created a site using a subtle nature inspired palette. I also used glass buttons and an open content area to keep the site looking clean and professional.