How We Revamped an Internal OKR System: A Step‑by‑Step Design Blueprint

Project Background

When a company reaches a certain scale, it often builds its own internal tools to control information security, cost, and risk. This article uses an internal OKR management system as a case study to illustrate a systematic approach to enterprise system redesign.

What is OKR?

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results, a framework for setting goals and tracking outcomes. The company adopts OKR to cascade objectives from the company level down to teams, departments, and individuals.

Why Redesign?

The previous performance system suffered from incomprehensible UI, high onboarding cost, cumbersome workflow, and costly mistakes, severely affecting goal‑management efficiency.

Design Process

1. Clarify Business and Define Strategy – Identify business goals, align design strategy, and avoid being driven solely by product prototypes.

2. Understand Users and Trace Problems – Conduct quantitative surveys of >100 internal users across roles and qualitative interviews to uncover core issues such as formulation, alignment, tracking, and information reach.

3. Link Scenarios and Break Down Problems – Map user roles (CEO, manager, peer) and define three OKR phases (formulation, execution, review) with specific touchpoints.

4. Solution Design and Mid‑term Validation – Design a clear page structure, fast O/KR switching, reduce steps, and streamline navigation for both desktop and mobile.

5. Implementation and Tracking – Deploy a tiered messaging system based on importance and urgency, adapt to desktop and mobile usage patterns, and conduct eight usability tests that confirmed improved experience.

Key Design Details

Clear navigation separates writing, reviewing, checking, and communicating functions.

Anchor‑based outline enables quick switching between Objectives and Key Results.

Step reduction cuts creation from ten steps to four.

Role‑based information display reduces lookup cost.

Message prioritization uses a 2×2 matrix (importance × urgency) and appropriate channels.

Results

After launch, the new OKR system showed higher UV/PV for core modules, improved satisfaction, and lower error rates compared with the legacy version.

Conclusion

Systematic business analysis, user research, scenario mapping, and iterative validation enable designers to deliver enterprise tools that not only meet functional requirements but also provide a smooth, value‑driven experience.