Techniques to build, engage and manage your intranet project
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Workshop delivered at Ark Intranets and Strategy March 5 2015. As busy intranet teams with limited time and budget, making improvements, or even rebuilding an intranet can be a daunting prospect. In this workshop Rebecca will take you through a number of techniques which you can do yourself, to help build, manage and engage your staff in your intranet project. - Overview of user experience and change management techniques to increase engagement - Hands on activities to go in-depth into techniques such as card-sorting and personas
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Techniques to build, engage and manage your intranet project
- 1. Techniques to build, engage and manage your intranet project Rebecca Jackson Social Media Manager, Melbourne Water @_rebeccajackson #intranetsaus
- 2. The bit about me • Social Media Manager at Melbourne Water • Business lead for the Intranet Redevelopment • Soon to be Community Engagement Manager at Seamless CMS • Sometime sketcher • Find me on: – Twitter: @_rebeccajackson – Blog: rebeccajacksonblogs.wordpress.com – www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccajljackson
- 3. The bit about you • Name • Role • Company • Why you signed up for this workshop
- 4. Agenda • Why bother with engagement • How can you engage your organisation • In depth and activities – Stakeholders and business representatives – Personas – Information Architecture • Resources
- 5. Why bother with engagement
- 7. Supports a solid business case
- 8. Early buy-in leads to project success
- 9. Different perspectives Beppie CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr
- 10. Discussion • What engagement blockers are there in your organisation?
- 11. How you can engage your organisation
- 12. Requirements gathering • It’s their intranet, you need to know what they NEED • Builds initial awareness about the project • Do it through – Focus groups – Surveys – Interviews
- 13. Business Representative Group • Representation from across the business • Keep updated about the project • Input into key project tasks • Quick access to what the business needs We’ll look at this one in more detail later
- 14. Personas • Represent your typical intranet users • Basis for design decisions • Quick reference to user perspective • Tool when talking to project stakeholders We’ll look at this one in more detail later
- 15. Show and tell sessions • Take every opportunity to talk about the project • Show designs and progress • Don’t be afraid about feedback
- 16. Information Architecture • Based on clear principles • Users do the work – Card sorting – Tree testing We’ll look at this one in more detail later
- 17. Usability testing • Users follow scenarios • Issues are recorded • Where practical, worked into development or the upgrade path
- 18. User acceptance testing • Project team follows formal scripts • Users do ‘exploratory testing’ • They become familiar with the system • Find issues that scripts don’t
- 19. Stakeholders
- 20. Why do you need your stakeholders? • Stakeholders can help when you need someone with ‘pull’ • When you need help with tasks, they are already engaged • Change management is easier with more people across it • Keeps the project ‘honest’ and close to user needs
- 21. Who are they? • Sponsor • Project leadership team • Project team • Business Representative Group • Business Champions • Content Owners and Authors • Users
- 22. Business Representative Group More regular and intensive involvement in broader project tasks. Business Champions Less regular involvement in more specific tasks to understand business needs and test the new intranet. Content SMEs and Authors Targeted involvement to learn how to write content, use the publishing tool and in the ongoing maintenance of content. Business stakeholders structure
- 23. Example project structure Sponsor Project Leadership Team Project Manager Business Lead Business reps Business Representative Group Business champions Authors / SMEs Project streams Design Technology Change / comms Governance Content IT Lead
- 24. How to choose your business reps • Organisational structure • Business function • Content area • Volunteer (or Voluntold)
- 25. Activity 1. Who are your key stakeholders 2. Choose your business representatives: – Select an approach (or combination) – Note who you would like to involve or what teams/business units 3. How will you approach your business reps?
- 26. Personas
- 27. Why Personas? • Understand user needs • Make usability a focus • Deliver on needs, not wants • Prioritise design decisions • Reduce testing expense • Change management • DIY vs consultant
- 28. Process • Research • Interview • Analyse • Report
- 29. Research • Use existing data if available – HR System – Prior research – Information from other projects • Workshop with a selection of staff
- 30. Interview • 15 users is a good, manageable number • Cover a range of demographics – i.e. age, location, tenure, job level • Questions – Demographic – Seek to find pain points – Learn top tasks • Observation at the interviewees desk
- 31. Analyse • Review data • Look for themes • Pick out great quotes • Group themes to build personas • Use data to build profiles
- 32. Report • Aim for 6-8 personas • Choose your level of detail • Give personas names • Select images – Stock vs staff • Consider audience and format
- 33. Personas Natalie the New Starter Anita the Author Karen the Knowledge Worker Peter the People Manager Austin the Operator
- 38. Activity 1. As individuals, write down 3 or more questions you could ask during a persona interview. The aim being to understand: – About them – Their job – How they use the intranet
- 40. Why Information Architecture? • Supports findability of your content • If you’re starting from scratch, you need a structure • If you’re rebuilding, you need to know if it’s working
- 41. Approaches • Top-down • Bottom-up • Hybrid
- 42. Process • Understand existing content (content inventory) • Find out what content needs there are (through interviews) • Optional: look at similar organisations, what do they do? • Create principles – the rules of the IA • Set up activities to structure content (card-sorting) • Test the structure (tree-testing) • Settle on a structure • Continuously improve
- 43. IA Principles • Before you start creating your structure, it helps to have rules to guide it • When creating the structure, it guides decisions • Once the structure is ‘set’ it guides any changes
- 44. Where does the IA come from • Existing intranet (content inventory) • Other systems
- 45. Activity • As a group let’s create some rules for our information architecture
- 46. Example of some IA principles • Doesn’t need to reflect old structure • Content should have one home • Not reflective of the organisational structure • Must make sense to new starters • Names should avoid group/team names where practical • No repetitive suffixes or prefixes (i.e. my… or our… or your…) • Top level fixed • Designed for flexibility at the lower levels • Top level, not too many, not too few (5-8)
- 47. Card sorting • A technique used to sort and categorise information • Informs heading titles • Gives structure to the information • Prioritises information
- 48. Open vs closed • Open: users sort cards and create their own category headings • Closed: you define the category headings and users sort into those
- 49. Tree testing • A method to validate and challenge an information architecture • Valuable to do after card-sorting The basics: • Create scenarios for a user to find information on the intranet • Based on the scenario, users should try to find content unguided • Use results to update the IA if needed
- 50. Online vs Offline Online • Easy to run and set up • Sometimes requires a license for a tool • Quicker to analyse results • Can include more people • Less bias Offline • Takes time to set up and coordinate • More hands on • Limits the number of people • Can observe decision making
- 51. Activity • Mock card-sorting session
- 52. Articles Personas • rebeccajacksonblogs.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/diy-intranet- personas • www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_personas • www.uxforthemasses.com/personas Card sorting • http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cardsorting • http://boxesandarrows.com/card-sorting-a-definitive-guide Tree testing • http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_treetesting
- 53. Further reading • A practical guide to Information Architecture – Donna Spencer http://maadmob.com.au/training/books/practical-ia • Designing intranets: creating sites that work – James Robertson http://store.steptwo.com.au/product/designing-intranets/
- 54. Thank you participating • Twitter: @_rebeccajackson • LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccajljackson • Blog: rebeccajacksonblogs.wordpress.com
Editor's Notes
- Primary reason we build, redevelop and improve on intranets is for staff. Intranets support business processes, bring staff together, make their jobs easier (ref essential intranets). An intranet built without engaging staff, might have a purpose but is unlikely to serve core staff needs.
- One of the hardest tasks with an intranet build or redevelopment is the business case, getting the funding. Starting with user research can help to identify areas of quick win or big bang for buck. Finding where efficiencies can be gained, what peoples issues are, is the starting point for your project. Compelling evidence and strong figures will speak to senior executives and assist in getting the resources required to build or improve.
- While doing a huge unveiling of the intranet and surprising staff with a dazzling new system might sound great for marketing, from a change management perspective it’s a big risk. By involving people in the project early
- A project team can get a bit of project tunnel vision
- http://www.christinanghiem.com/corbis-personas.html
- https://ebiinterfaces.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/personas-for-the-ebi-resdesign/