Redesigning document exchange for a local healthcare nonprofit, moving from expiring email links to a centralized, role-based SharePoint hub.
Product
PCC Partner Portal
Skills
Product design, Stakeholder management, User research & testing
My role
Product Designer
Team
UX Team, Operation Team, Development Team, and other Program Team directors
Tool
Figma, Sharepoint, Weebly, Trello
Key metrics
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Context
As a scaling healthcare nonprofit, PCC struggled with fragmented document sharing and security gaps that delayed care, as their reliance on expiring email links and manual workarounds hindered collaboration with Healthcare partners
What's the problem? What are the goals?
📈 Business Needs
Enable secure, HIPAA-compliant collaboration with external partners by leveraging existing Microsoft infrastructure to reduce administrative overhead and operational risks.
❓Problem to Solve
External partners faced frequent lockouts due to expiring links and complex permissions, forcing staff to rely on manual, insecure email workarounds to share critical data.
📍Project Goal
Design a centralized, role-based partner portal with a persistent folder architecture that ensures reliable access, maintains version control, and simplifies document exchange.
🪨 Challenge
How can we build a secure, intuitive portal that handles sensitive healthcare data (PHI/PII) while working within the technical constraints of PCC’s existing SharePoint environment and limited IT capacity?
Solutions
We designed a centralized partner portal and optimized the SharePoint architecture focused on security, reliability, and reducing administrative friction.
Integrated Entry Point
A persistent hub on the official website using a two-tier model to separate public and private resources while centralizing time-sensitive announcements.
Persistent SharePoint Workspace
A secure, program-specific architecture using permanent folder links to enable consistent partner access and role-based document uploads.
Enhanced Information Transparency
A branded environment with standardized subfolders and clear document metadata to ensure navigation consistency and eliminate version control confusion.
Process
Research Systemic Root Causes
We conducted stakeholder interviews, competitive analysis, and journey mapping to uncover why the existing SharePoint setup failed external partners and where the workflow broke down.
Architect a Two-Tier Security Model
We defined a new structural logic that separated public resources from private, authenticated data, utilizing a persistent folder-link model to solve the issue of expiring links.
Prototype for Functional Clarity
We built mid-fidelity wireframes in Figma, intentionally stripping away aesthetics to pressure-test the navigation, subfolder organization, and announcement features with PCC staff.
Validate Against Real-World Workflows
We facilitated 5 usability testing sessions with internal and external stakeholders to identify browser compatibility issues and refine program-specific access controls.
Finalize Scalable Design & Governance
We applied PCC’s visual identity to the final prototype and delivered a comprehensive governance guide for SharePoint configuration, ensuring a sustainable handoff to the PCC team.
Final Design
Reflections & What I Would Do Differently
Establish a Technical Contingency Plan Earlier
Instead of waiting for environment permissions, we would proactively initiate secondary research and platform-independent wireframing to further minimize the impact of technical roadblocks.
Formalize Design-to-Development Handoff
We would integrate engineering-aligned documentation within the design system from the start to more seamlessly bridge the gap between Figma prototypes and the final implementation environment
Establish a Technical Contingency Plan Earlier
Instead of waiting for environment permissions, we would proactively initiate secondary research and platform-independent wireframing to further minimize the impact of technical roadblocks.
