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
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 3 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

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
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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 with user-friendly architecture — slide 5 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

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
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 6 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

…with user-friendly architecture
Learnable Efficient Memorable Satisfying Error-free
Relevant
Streamlined Personalised
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 7 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

…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
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How do we do this?
Identify needs
Analysing Streamlining
behaviour processes
Personalising
Research
Testing it!
Design
Validate
Requirements Analysis Design Implementation Verification Maintenance
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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
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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”
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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”
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 12 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

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
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 13 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

Identifying needs
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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?
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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
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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
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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
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 18 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

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?”
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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
 Based on illustrations & concepts from Sun Microsystems, Inc.
designcomics.org/slides/Miguel-v1-0.odp
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 20 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

Analysing behaviour
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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?
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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
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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
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 24 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

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
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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
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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
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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
 Based on illustrations & concepts from Sun Microsystems, Inc.
designcomics.org/slides/Galina-v1-0.odp
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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
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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
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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
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What are your examples?
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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/
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 33 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

Personalisation
vs
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 34 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

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
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Personalised intranet home page
Just what I
need!
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 36 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

Personalised intranet home page
And just
what I
need!
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 37 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

Personalised intranet home page
 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
 Based on illustrations & concepts from Sun Microsystems, Inc.
designcomics.org/slides/Galina-v1-0.odp
and http://designcomics.org/slides/Miguel-v1-0.odp
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 38 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

Location-based personalisation
TrueLocal.com.au is a business
directory similar to YellowPages
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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
 Based on illustrations & concepts from Sun Microsystems, Inc.
designcomics.org/slides/Miguel-v1-0.odp
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 40 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

What are your examples?
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 41 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

What are your examples?
 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/
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 42 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

The importance of validation
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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
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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
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 45 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

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
Re-engineering your intranet with user-friendly architecture — slide 46 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com

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 — slide 47 Gurtle Digital Solutions www.gurtle.com