Transcript Slide 1
Managing and Measuring Intranet Content
Julie Poroznuk, ABC CEBS JP Communication May 2007
Intranet Content
What is an intranet?
An intranet is an online presence secured behind the company’s firewall.
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Intranet Content
Developing content and applications
Focus must be on business needs in order to have long-term value.
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Intranet Content
Effective Content
is connected to the key objectives of the organization is up to date provides timely information is meaningful to the people who will use it
is from a trusted source
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Intranet Content
Developing content Identify key work groups you want the intranet to serve
Functional teams Business units Key projects Ask the users: What are their content needs?
What will have most impact on their performance?
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Intranet Content
Sample questions
What are the most important things your team has to do over the next couple of years?
How could you personally be twice as effective?
If you could have anything you wanted to help you do your job better, what would it be?
What are the most frustrating time-wasters in your life?
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Intranet Content
Classify the ideas according to:
how they will impact the team
how they will support the strategic goals
the cost and other required resources
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Intranet Content
build a list of content opportunities and options that range from quick-wins to high impact but high-cost applications plot the options on a chart where one axis is the estimated impact or value, and the other the cost or difficulty Value Cost
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Intranet Content
The oddities of Web space
no sense of scale no sense of direction no sense of location
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Intranet Content
Finding Information
“no more than three clicks” what really counts is how hard each click is card sorting
people read computer text 28% slower than printed text
79% of users only scan web pages
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Intranet Content
re-purpose content chunking shorter pages = less scrolling get rid of half the words - and then do that again avoid happy talk (intro, welcome..)
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Intranet Content
keep the important stuff “above the fold” use headings, sub-headings, point form avoid instructions - should be self-explanatory simple graphics
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Intranet Content
Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading
“Forcing users to browse PDF files makes usability approximately 300% worse compared to HTML pages. Only use PDF for documents that users are likely to print.”
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox
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Managing the Content
content should be created, owned and managed by the people who own the knowledge
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central team members should help content contributors improve the service they provide
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identify areas not being served by the intranet
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work as advisors for new and special projects
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Managing the Content
employees should be able to update content independently IT bottlenecks reduce efficiency empower non-technical contributors establish work flow for content creation
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Managing the Content
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content management software should make it easy for you to set up the: page templates approval processes user roles rules about who should be responsible each content area this should not require extensive database development or specialized programming
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Measuring Content
Measurement Guidelines
simple metrics related to business objectives can be very powerful
don't measure because you can - but because it is meaningful
use a mixture of quantitative and qualitative metrics
stories are more powerful than statistics
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Measuring Content
Using metrics allows
targets to be set success to be assessed ROI to be estimated problems to be corrected
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Measuring Content
Implementation metrics
System usage
web usage statistics search engine usage messages sent/posted other knowledge creation measures knowledge use 19
Measuring Content
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Measuring Content
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Measuring Content
Number of users
hits page requests single page visits visits unique visits user sessions clickstream
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Measuring Content
information quality information currency user feedback maintenance costs staff efficiency printing costs distributed authoring process efficiency, reduced time transaction costs
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Measuring Content
Customer Service Metrics
product sales
lead conversion customer satisfaction consistency of advice call handling time transactions processed support requests
product development cycle
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Measuring Content
Cultural Metrics
success stories, anecdotes staff morale, satisfaction cultural change staff learning
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Measuring Content
Guidelines and Tips
be specific determine a baseline automate measures measure the right things less measures, not more effect of other activities re-evaluate metrics
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Measuring Content
analyze log files regularly and act on findings site statistics can be very misleading focus on the user combine methods remember the big picture
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http://www.usability.gov/process.html
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Usability Testing
What you don’t need
a Ph.D. in Psychology
a high-tech lab with lots of test apparatus eye tracking device multimillion dollar budget
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Usability Testing
The six steps of testing
develop test plan
select participants prepare test materials conduct the test debrief the participant transform data into findings and recommendations
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Usability Testing
Test Objectives Examples:
How easily can users locate the benefits information they need to determine their level of coverage?
How easily can users make changes to personal information?
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Usability Testing
Match tasks to test objectives
Your child needs braces. Find out how much your dental plan will pay for orthodontist services.
You just got married. Register your new spouse as an eligible dependent for benefits coverage.
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Usability Testing
Examples of conditions for success:
The user should be able to find the correct information in less than three minutes.
No more than four clicks should be needed to find the information.
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Usability Testing
Examples of Measures
Excellent: completed the task easily with time and clicks to spare.
Acceptable or OK: completed the task within or close to requirements
Unacceptable: did not complete the task, or took much longer and more clicks to find the information than is acceptable.
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Usability Testing
How many participants?
typical test has 6 to 12 participants
three for a simple test is an absolute minimum (remove idiosyncrasies)
three to five: enough information to be comfortable with your conclusions
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Usability Testing
How do I select participants?
actual users, if known (average employees) don’t use developers of the site make sure the participants show up provide some reward for participation include at least a few LCUs (least competent users)
beware of highly seasoned users
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Usability Testing
Who should conduct the tests?
Test Monitor
most critical role
needs to objective sometimes this person is the whole testing team
sometimes an external party is the best choice
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Usability Testing
Data Logger
takes down information as participant performs tasks
usually logs several types of data:
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time elapsed number of clicks path of clicks success or failure
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Usability Testing
Conduct a Pilot Test
test drive the tasks
makes sure everything works properly don’t do this at the last minute preferably with someone who would qualify as an actual participant
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Usability Testing
Analyzing the Results
Levels of severity
prevents completion of task
creates significant delay and frustration has a minor effect indicates possible future enhancements
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Usability Testing
Recommending Changes
consider the complexity of the problems
consult with designers/developers, technical communicators, usability specialists
balance effort for benefit
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Usability Testing
Communicating the Results
informal memo
verbal report
formal report
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introduction
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methodology user profile task list results discussion
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Usability Testing
Usability Testing
moves the discussion from what’s right and what’s wrong to what works and what doesn’t
helps us realize that all users are not like us
The point is not to prove or disprove something, but to inform your judgement.
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Usability Testing
What is a usability review?
a usability expert reviews your site and provides a report sometimes used before a re-design can be used before testing to identify problem areas
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New Media
blogs wikis podcasts videocasts enterprise chat interactive screensavers VOIP (voice over Internet protocol)
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Making Intranets Meaningful
put at least one new item on the global home page every day give prominence to strategic information and “new” news facilitate content contributions from everyone integrate services and applications
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Global Intranet Strategies Survey Executive Summary
the intranet has entered maturity as a primary information tool
senior management perception of the intranet is out of sync with reality on the ground
intranets lack sufficient funding and resources
decision-making is an issue customer-facing functions are largely missing from the intranet primary strategy drivers are “building a common culture”
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Global Intranet Strategies Survey
primary obstacle to achieving full potential is that it is too communication-oriented and lacks integrated applications intranet evaluation is irregular and inconsistent only 1 out of 4 organizations is obliged to demonstrate ROI for intranet investments information flows are strongest in top-down direction 3 out of 4 have an employee directory, but only 1 out of 5 contain information about peoples’ skills and expertise
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Global Intranet Strategies Survey
Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis) are making their way to the intranet organizations who consider the intranet to be “business critical” are more likely to adopt Web 2.0 technologies and have stronger communication flows than average
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Global Intranet Strategies Survey What evaluation techniques do you use?
Telephone interviews Online polls Other Formal benchmarking studies Expert analysis Informal benchmarking with other organizations Emails to the intranet managers Focus groups Analysis of search logs Online surveys Informal feedback from users Analysis of usage statistics 9 15 17 21 35 35 37 42 42 65 79 89
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Global Intranet Strategies Survey What is the frequency of your formal evaluations?
Not regular (48%) Once a year (29%) At least twice a year (14%) Have not done any yet (9%)
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Global Intranet Strategies Survey Conclusions
the intranet is still in its infancy
the intranet is moving towards the individual
senior management has a stronger role to play in the intranet
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Making Intranets Meaningful
“Usability rules the Web... He or she who clicks the mouse gets to decide everything.” -Jacob Nielsen 53
References
Articles
Metrics for knowledge and content management by James Robertson http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_metrics/index.html
Employing Strategic Content Management for Successful Intranets by Hank Barnes http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200106/cm_06_06_01a.
html
Developing business focused content and applications from Melcrum contentappdev
Practitioner’s Guide to Managing Intranets and Portals
http://www.vigorat.com/killerappsvigorat.htm#contentappdev#
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References
Articles
Tools for Assessing Website Usage by Scott Anderson, Terri Willard, Heather Creech and Deborah Bakker http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2001/Web_evaluation.pdf
Global Intranet Strategies Today & Tomorrow Survey, Summary of Results by Jane McConnell http://netjmc.com/engl/survey06summary.html
Looking through the Portal by Philip Weiss, Communication World, May-June 2007
Making Intranets Meaningful by Jane McConnell, Communication World, May-June 2007
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References
Usability Web Sites
www.usability.gov
www.useit.com
www.usableweb.com
www.intranetinsider.com
www.humanfactors.com
www.upassoc.org
www.userdox.com
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