Re-engineering Your Intranet With User Friendly Architecture

Re-engineering your intranet with user-
friendly architecture

Strategically Managing Intranet Developments
Sydney, Australia
3rd March 2009

“The customer is
always right.
Even when
they’re wrong,
they’re still right”
Matt Moran, celebrity chef
and restaurateur

Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 2 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

Introduction
 For your intranet, your customers are your users
 In terms of knowing what they want, need and do, the
customer (or the user) is always right
 But you might need to translate between what is
“right” and what they think is right
 And you have to ask the right questions, you can’t
just ask them what they want
 Listening to your users is the recipe for user friendly
intranets
 Image credit
 images.theage.com.au/ftage/ffximage/2008/10/30/wr_moran2.jpg


A bit about Patrick Kennedy
 I’m a user experience architect
 Which means I design user experiences by
understanding users, predominantly for websites
 I have a particular interest in user research
 My experience includes time at Step Two Designs,
where I consulted clients on intranet needs analysis
and redesign
 My background is in Computer Systems Engineering
and web development


Re-engineering your intranet…

Engineering is
“the application of science and mathematics by which the
properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are
made useful to people”

(source: Webster’s)

Requirements Analysis Design Implementation Veriﬁcation Maintenance


Re-engineering your intranet…
 Webster’s dictionary deﬁnes engineering as “the
application of science and mathematics by which the
properties of matter and the sources of energy in
nature are made useful to people”
 Some of the words might be a bit odd but I think this
sounds very familiar to anyone who has redesigned
an intranet
 A typical engineering process involves:
Requirements, Analysis, Design, Implementation,
Veriﬁcation and Maintenance
 Which should also sound familiar


…with user-friendly architecture

Learnable Efﬁcient Memorable Satisfying Error-free

Relevant

Streamlined Personalised


…with user-friendly architecture
 What is a user-friendly intranet architecture (UFIA)?
 In this context I’m talking about “Information Architecture”
 Usability consists of: [http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html]:
 Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the
first time they encounter the design?
 Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can
they perform tasks?
 Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of
not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
 Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these
errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
 Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?
 Today I’m going to add “Relevant” and talk about how a
relevant intranet is Streamlined and Personalised


How do we do this?
Identify needs
Analysing Streamlining
behaviour processes

Personalising
Research
Testing it!
Design

Validate

Requirements Analysis Design Implementation Veriﬁcation Maintenance


How do we do this?
 Overlaying the engineering process with a generic user centred
design (UCD) process we see how they can ﬁt together
 Research
 Understand the goals, attitudes and behaviours of our audience
 Assessing user psychology
 Identifying needs
 Analysing behaviours
 Design
 We translate this knowledge of our audience into a design solution
 Streamlining processes to simplify work ﬂow and usability
 Personalising the intranet experience by creating user centred
design
 Validate
 We test our design solution to ensure it suits our audience


When do we do this?
 Often UCD is a ﬁxed component at the start (or end) of a project
 But is valuable throughout the development cycle
 As user advocates, we can assist with strategy and planning before
thinking of a speciﬁc product
 Similarly, we can ensure design and build “stick to the plan”


This is Galina, senior account manager
 Ofﬁce based
 50 major clients
 18 mths at company
 Mostly phone/email
 And lots of ofﬂine
and paper usage
 Little need for
collaboration
 Rarely uses intranet
 “Time is money”


This is Galina, senior account manager
 Galina…
 Based in HQ office, occasionally some travel
 Responsible for 50 medium and large customers
 Some sales and biz dev
 Been with the company 18 months
 She finds it hard to know who to talk to about specific things
 Easier to just pick up the phone, lots of tacit knowledge in her role
 In fact she uses email and her phone more than anything else
 Also uses a lot of hard-copy manuals, procedures, rate cards
 Quite autonomous, little need for collaboration
 Doesn’t use the intranet much, doesn’t offer her anything
 Uses it for ESS/HR stuff and some forms, every once in a way
 She is time poor and a bit of a control freak
 Wants information in her hands quickly, the long term is not important
 Image credit
 Based on illustrations & concepts from Sun Microsystems, Inc.
designcomics.org/slides/Galina-v1-0.odp

Identifying needs


Identifying needs
 The ﬁrst step is to work out what is needed
 And ﬁnd out who your users are
 Assessing user psychology, if you will
 Questions we want to ask (perhaps not directly) are
 What do users need from the intranet?
 What are their goals and attitudes?
 How can we provide something useful for them?


User research for identifying needs
 Many different ways to learn about your users
 Interviews, proxy interviews and contextual inquiry
 Diary studies and cultural probes
 Competitor analysis, expert review, heuristic review
 Surveys, focus groups and other market research techniques
 Card sorting (to discover terminology and info relationships)
 Ethnography is becoming more widely used
 Get into the ﬁeld, live the life of your subjects and take their point
of view during analysis and decision making
 Image credits
 (top) Workplace observation. Source: Step Two Designs
 (bottom left) Interview. Source: News Digital Media
 (bottom right) Focus group
Source: www.mosman.nsw.gov.au/planningreview/images/24.jpg


Interviews
 One method in particular is the interview
 It is the “pack horse” of the intranet user researcher
 There are several different ways of doing interviews:
 One-on-one with users
 Proxy (speaking to someone who can tell you about your users)
 Contextual inquiry
 (as part of) Usability testing
 Paired interviews
• Interview two participants at the same time
• Eg people from different regions/departments doing similar jobs
• Participants validate each others opinions and processes
 Convergent interviews
• Conduct two separate interviews simultaneously then compare
similarities and differences


Further reading
 Visocky O'Grady, J. and Visocky O'Grady, K. (2006) A Designer's
Research Manual: Succeed in Design by Knowing Your Clients and
What They Really Need. Rockport Publishers.
 Gomol, K. and Church, E. and Bond, E. (2007) The Field Study
Handbook: A common sense approach to discovering user needs.
User Interface Engineering. Available online at:
www.uie.com/reports/field_study_handbook/
 Mulder, S. with Yaar, Z. (2007). The User Is Always Right: A Practical
Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web. New Riders.
 Kuniavsky, M. (2003). Observing the User Experience: A
practitioner’s guide to user research. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
 Biller, G. and Scovel, K. (2008). Getting people to talk [video].
Available online at: www.vimeo.com/1269848
 Kennedy, P. (2009) Intermediaries in user research. Available one at:
www.gurtle.com/ppov/2009/01/23/intermediaries-in-user-research


This is Miguel, ﬁeld service technician
 Works on the road
 Servicing equipment
 Needs access to tech
knowledge base
 Needs to consult and
collaborate with team
 Uses intranet in
frequent short bursts
 8 years at company
 Has extensive network
 “Is this the latest info?”


This is Miguel, field service technician
 Miguel…
Works on the road, rarely in office
Services equipment for all customers in his area
Accessing lots of technical info, it’s part of his “intranet”
Some email but lots of face-to-face and phone collaboration with other
technicians (how do you fix this? What do you do to handle that?)
 Not a lot of hard-copy, everything online
 Can’t always access, so needs to connect and synch often
 Makes reference to info frequently but not for long
 Been with the company 8 years
 Knows everyone and has a big personal network, who who to contact
 Having accurate and up-to-date information is vital
 Hates wasting time chasing information about a particular machine and
its history
 Image credit
designcomics.org/slides/Miguel-v1-0.odp


Analysing behaviour


Analysing behaviour
 In addition to identifying and understanding our users
needs we also need to analyse their behaviour
 How do they use the intranet?
 When? Why? Why not?
 Which features or content are used the most?


User research for analysing behaviour
 Similar to identifying needs, and usually done at same time
 But particular methods for analysing behaviour include:
 Task analysis workshop
 Search analytics (search engine logs)
 Web analytics (including path analysis tools eg Clicktale.com)
 Tech support service logs
 Observation (including usability testing and eye tracking)
 CRM and sales data analysis
 Image credits
 (bottom left) Web analytics. Source: Google Analytics
 (top right) Contextual inquiry, also known as a “site visit”
Source: www.hillaryelmore.com/images/contextualinquiry.jpg
 (top left) Eye-tracking.
Source: www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200503/Heatmap.jpg
 (bottom right) Workshop. Source:
www.dwp.gov.uk/pensionsreform/forum/photos/collection7/coll7-5.jpg


Further reading
 Everything listed on slide 18, plus…
 Unknown (2006) Task analysis methods. UsabilityNet. Available online at:
http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/taskanalysis.htm
 Kennedy, P. (2007) Website analytics. Available online at:
http://www.gurtle.com/ppov/2007/11/14/website-analytics
 Diamond, F. (2003) Web trafﬁc analytics and user experience. Boxes and
Arrows. Available online at:
www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/web_traffic_analytics_and_user_experience.php
 Hackos, JoAnn & Redish, Janice C. (1998) User and Task Analysis for
Interface Design. John Wiley & Sons.
 Rubin, J. (1994) Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and
Conduct Effective Tests. Wiley.
 Penzo, M. (2005) Introduction to Eyetracking: Seeing Through Your Users’
Eyes. UXmatters. Available online at: uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000040.php
 Godin, S. (2007) Eye-tracking rules. Available online at:
www.sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/11/eye-tracking-ru.html


Relevancy is the key to moving forward
 You’ve done research but how do you create your
user-friendly intranet architecture?
 How do you move from research into design?
 The key is that extra attribute of intranet usability we
introduced before: “relevant”
 You take what you have learnt from your research:
identifying needs and analysing behaviour
 And you use this to determine what is relevant
 Two ways this often manifests are:
 Streamlining
 Personalisation


Streamlining
 Streamlining processes to simplify work ﬂow and
usability
 Automating to remove choices/steps
 Simplifying
 Stick to usability conventions
 Use your users’ language
 The user interface should provide good translation
between the system model and users’ mental model
 Two examples are:
 Employee self-service (ESS) leave form
 CMS user interface


Streamlining by simplifying path to ESS

NEED In main nav
In sub nav
I just want to
check my
ESS ESS login
holidays!

Click here to
Login form
Login to ESS

ACTION Only thing
on page


Streamlining by simplifying path to ESS
 Here is an example of the navigation path to the ESS (Employee Self
Service) section of a large intranet
 Galina’s “need” is to check her holidays
 The necessary “action” is to use ESS
 But between the two are a lot of unnecessary steps
 ESS is often the most highly used part of a corporate intranet
 If nothing else is of value to staff, then why on earth would you make
it this hard to get to it?
 Sure it’s a third-party web application, but integration could be better
than this
 You could further stream line by including ESS in ‘single sign-on’ so
the login form is also removed
 Image credit


Streamlining by automation of CMS tasks

NEED Creates article asset

I just want to
put this
Create
Write article
article up!
page asset

Assign article
Publish page
to page

ACTION Publishes both assets


Streamlining by automation of CMS tasks
 Here is an example of how a Content Management System (CMS) is
in desperate need of some automation
 Miguel’s “need” is to publish a technical article on the intranet
 The necessary “action” is to publish the article using the CMS
 In between are unnecessary steps, requiring Miguel to understand
and interact with the internal “asset model” of the CMS
 If articles are always on a page, then you can automate the creation
of the page asset and linking of the two assets
 Image credit
 Based on illustrations & concepts from Sun
Microsystems, Inc. designcomics.org/slides/Miguel-v1-0.odp


An aside: why does this happen?
 Especially when it comes to a CMS interface…
 Developers don’t understand users, nor think like them
 Poor speciﬁcations/requirements fail to capture real context of use
 Team is too close to the technical details
 No usability testing
 Trying to be everything rather than a system to suit a speciﬁc purpose
 Edge cases and “what if” scenarios are not prioritised realistically
 Further reading
 Kennedy, P. (2009) 17 usability tips to make your CMS rock. Available
online at:
www.gurtle.com/ppov/2009/02/10/17-usability-tips-to-make-your-cms-rock


What are your examples?


 The best examples of streamlining processes and interfaces to make
intranets more user-friendly are likely to be found right in this very
room!
 Image credit
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdutile/3289061063/


Personalisation

vs


Personalisation
 Personalising the intranet experience by creating
user centred design
 This is a way of catering for vastly different users
 And seemingly contradictory behaviours/needs
 For example:
 Business unit centric home pages
 Location-based tools and content
 Image credits
 (left) http://designcomics.org/slides/Miguel-v1-0.odp
 (right) http://designcomics.org/slides/Galina-v1-0.odp


Personalised intranet home page

Just what I
need!



And just
what I
need!


 Tailor at least the home page to the speciﬁc staff groups that exist
with your organisation
 Galina needs quick access to “local” details, and the occasional
procedure and form
 Miguel and his team need collaboration tools and access to
technical knowledge-base content
 Further reading
 Kennedy, P. (2007) Intranet redesign for Canon Australia.
Available online at: www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_canoncasestudy/
 Image credit
and http://designcomics.org/slides/Miguel-v1-0.odp


Location-based personalisation

TrueLocal.com.au is a business
directory similar to YellowPages


Location-based personalisation
 Personalisation might also include tailoring content to the
geographic location of the user
 For example, weather module and TrueLocal.com.au module
give info relevant for the speciﬁc city/ofﬁce the user is in
 Small but crucial elements that increase users’ perception of
the intranet as a useful tool
 Further reading on personalisation
 Robertson, J. (2005) Search engine ‘best bets’. Step Two Designs. Available
online at: www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_bestbets/
 Grenfell, C. (2007) Do staff make use of personalisation features?. Step Two
Designs. Available online at: www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_personalisation/
 Image credit
designcomics.org/slides/Miguel-v1-0.odp


 The best examples of personalisation to make intranets more user-
friendly are likely to be found right in this very room!
 Image credit
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdutile/3289061063/


The importance of validation


The importance of validation
 You probably won’t get your UFIA right the ﬁrst time, so it’s
important to validate your design (ie usability testing)
 This usability testing comes in many forms
 It doesn’t have to be big, expensive testing in a lab
 The key is that users are involved in the validation
 And that realistic tasks are used for testing
 Further reading: see the last three references on slide 24
 Image credits
 (top right) Typical lab-based usability testing
Source: www.xperienceconsulting.com/eng/img/interior/labs-3.jpg
 (bottom right) Paper prototyping for testing
Source:www.nngroup.com/reports/prototyping/prototype_tabs.jpg
 (left) Card Based Classiﬁcaton Evaluation
Source: Step Two Designs


Card Based Classiﬁcation Evaluation
 A simple technique to test the usability of the IA
 Tests the raw site structure without page layout or content
distracting
 You map out your IA onto cards
 Then ask participants where they would “go”
 Evolved from closed card sorting
 Similar to another technique called “tree testing”
 From this you might move on to paper prototyping your design
 Further reading
 Maurer, D. (2003) Card-based classiﬁcation evaluation. Boxes
and Arrows. Available online at:
www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_based_classification_evaluation


In summary
 Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture ﬁrst
requires you to identify and understand your customers’ needs
 And then analyse their behaviour
 Because the user is always right, even when they’re not “right”
 You can then translate this into an intranet architecture that is,
in addition to generic usability attributes, relevant
 And hence more user-friendly and more useful
 Among other things, making it relevant means the intranet
should be streamlined and personalised
 There are a number of simple methods available to help us
with each step of this re-engineering process, including
validating that we have been successful


Any questions?
 My contact details are:
Patrick Kennedy
pat@gurtle.com
www.gurtle.com/ppov/

 I will place these slides on line at
www.slideshare.net/patrickkennedy
 Feel free to email me any questions you have later


Re-engineering Your Intranet With User Friendly Architecture

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