Technology Toolbox

The CIB Technology Toolbox is a SharePoint-based platform used by staff to access tools, resources, and internal information. As the platform evolved, it became harder to navigate, inconsistent in structure, and less effective in supporting both new joiners and experienced employees.

I worked on improving the platform by restructuring content, refining the user experience, and aligning the visual language to better support usability, onboarding, and day-to-day productivity.

Project Overview

Role:

UX Designer

Company:

Standard Bank CIB

The challenge

The Toolbox existed, but it was not working as intended.

Content was not always relevant or useful
Navigation made it difficult to find information quickly
Visual design did not align with company standards
Accessibility considerations were not consistently applied
New joiners struggled to understand internal language and systems

This resulted in increased reliance on colleagues for support and time wasted searching for resources

My Role

I contributed to the redesign and improvement of the Toolbox, working across both design and implementation.

My focus areas included:

Evaluating the existing platform
Improving information architecture and content structure
Aligning the visual language with company standards
Supporting ongoing design and development decisions

Approach

Evaluating the existing platform

Before making changes, I conducted a full review of the Toolbox.
Each page was assessed based on three key questions:
Is this page necessary?
Is the content accurate and useful?
Does the design align with company standards?
This helped identify gaps and areas for improvement across structure, content, and usability.

2. Identifying key issues

The evaluation revealed several consistent problems:

Poor information architecture made navigation difficult
Content did not fully support user needs or business goals
Visual inconsistencies reduced clarity and trust
Accessibility was not properly considered

These issues confirmed that improvements needed to go beyond UI changes and address the overall experience.

3. Validating with users

To avoid making assumptions, we tested the platform with actual users.

We conducted two rounds of interviews:

Round 1: New joiners

We spoke to 6 graduates to understand how they interacted with the Toolbox.

The sessions included:

Understanding their mental models and familiarity with the organisation
Observing how they navigated the platform
Gathering expectations as they explored different pages

Key insights:

Internal language and acronyms created confusion
Navigation was not intuitive
Users expected similar types of content across sections

Round 2: Existing staff and leadership

We engaged more experienced employees and stakeholders to understand:

How the Toolbox supported their workflows
What content was most valuable
Where gaps existed

This helped balance onboarding needs with ongoing usage.

Redesigning the experience

Based on insights, the platform was updated to:

Improve navigation and content structure
Simplify language and reduce reliance on jargon
Align the visual design with company standards
Ensure content better supported user goals

The focus was not just on redesigning pages, but on making the platform more usable and relevant.

1. Constraints:

Because the platform was built on SharePoint, there were limitations:

Restricted layout flexibility
Constraints on images and visual quality
Technical complexity when implementing changes

These constraints required practical design decisions that balanced ideal solutions with what was feasible

2. Sustainability:

A key consideration was ensuring the platform could be maintained over time.

We focused on:

Structuring content in a way that was easy to update
Avoiding unnecessary complexity
Supporting a model that did not require constant full-time management

Result and impact

The improvements helped make the Toolbox more usable and effective:

Easier navigation and improved findability of resources
Better support for onboarding new joiners
More consistent and aligned visual experience
Reduced reliance on colleagues for basic information
Increased self-service across teams