McDonald’s came to GRAYBOX seeking a way to improve the organization of their intranet portal. The McDonald’s intranet allowed all members of McDonald’s staff to create web pages at anytime for any reason specific to McDonald’s in their localized area. Not only was GRAYBOX tasked in organizing all tiers of their site pages, but to implement a system to maintain organization moving forward.
Overall Outcome
GRAYBOX sorted through all current pages of the site, while creating a method to optimize organization moving forward.
The Results
McDonald’s had a unique model that ensured structurally organization on the back-end of their intranet site.
600K
Pages Re-Organized
43K
Sites Re-Indexed
The Overall Problem
It’s not a surprise that McDonald’s is easily one of the largest fast-food chains worldwide. GRAYBOX worked with McDonald's on a 14-month project to re-organize and redesign its worldwide corporate intranet.
Because McDonald's had an online network that allowed anyone hired within McDonald’s team globally to create web pages, there were over 600,000 web pages associated with 43,000 unique micro-sites. These pages were all multi-tiered, with some pages that were established from a corporate level, and some were employee created.
Beyond the massive reorganized effort, we created a new content taxonimy for current & future pages; as well as we redesigned all new navigation and page layouts for the new intranet.
We’ve been so pleased with all the progress that we’ve made on our massive intranet project — we look forward to continuing to work together as we rethink how global communications is centralized and administered.
Our Solution
1. Brand Definition
Although they have such a well-known name, their brand vision and mission sometimes is lost in translation. When facing this project, GRAYBOX was faced with the question, What pages from the former website should be removed and what should be added in place? What setup accurately depicts McDonalds? In order for GRAYBOX to accurately assess the redesign of the site structure, they had to fully immerse in the McDonald’s brand vision. Not only was GRAYBOX taking on many pages within a website, but was also meticulously going through each page to understand the McDonalds culture, purpose and long-term use.
2. Wireframing & Redesign of Multi-Lingual Website
Creating wireframes for the former site was a large undertaking as GRAYBOX was tasked with sorting through and organizing nearly 600,000 pages. From the 40,000 individual sites associated with the corporate site, GRAYBOX structured a new system that narrowed the pages down by the amount of visits and how old it was within the system. This was an essential step in creating a sustainable system that would no longer be able to accumulate unnecessary and unused pages associated with the global site. GRAYBOX architectured the site extensively with sitemaps and wireframes that consistently reflected the brand vision, along with visual elements for each of the pages.
Wow, it’s amazing to work with McDonald’s so early in the life of GRAYBOX. We redesigned and completely reorganized their international intranet portal. It was a year of efffort to untangle this large knot, but it was a huge milestone in our capacity for both large-scale Enterprise work, content strategy and user-centric design. We’re very proud of this one.
Our Services
The project resulted in a significantly organized corporate McDonald's site with GRAYBOX's efforts in brand definition, wireframing and other services.
GRAYBOX's efforts increased internal site organization tremendously, redefinded brand vision and identity, and overall created sustainable improvements in ideation and concept generation.
The new site design and wireframes were organized into a prototype and shared throughout McDonalds corporate team and other influencers within the McDonalds network. With the new site, users within McDonald’s were still able to create pages, but they were filtered out automatically depending on the usage and how frequently the page was used. Although GRAYBOX didn’t develop the new site, they provided extensive visual brand representation and remain a resource for McDonalds as they approach other digital-related needs moving forward.
600K
Pages Re-Organized
43K
Sites Re-Indexed
Contact Us
We'd love to answer any questions, give you some free advice, and talk about your next project.
Beyond just individual projects, we work with you to find success in everything digital. Trust us to guide your unique business in an everchanging digital world.
Our Results
