how to drive intranet adoption

Architects of the User Experience

How to Drive Intranet AdoptionNatalie Buda and Jessie Collins

2NavigationArts, LLC

How to Drive Intranet Adoption

Introduction


What Makes a Good Intranet Good?Appropriate Features


• Your intranet may serve some, or all, of the following purposes:

• Communication

• Document Sharing and Collaboration

• Knowledge Management

• Personnel and Project Management


• Successful intranets have a clear mission with attainable objectives and measurable goals

• Specific objectives might include:

• Acclimating new personnel to the company

• Communicating new strategic initiatives and other organizational change

• Building corporate culture and fostering networking

• Harnessing enterprise-wide knowledge

• Increasing work productivity and efficiency

• The mission, objectives, and goals guide the prioritization of funds and resources, promotion, feature development, technology choices, and calculation of return on investment


What Makes a Good Intranet Good?Clear Goals


• The intranet that is most effective for your organization is one designed and developed around the needs and goals of its users


What Makes a Good Intranet Good?A User-Centric Approach


• The key to adoption is delivering up-to-date content and providing high-value services or “killer apps” in a user-friendly environment

• Definition: Killer apps are tools or applications integrated into your intranet that are so compelling and useful, they prove essential. As “sticky” applications, they help ensure regular intranet usage.

• Many killer apps are self-service tools that allow users to bypass lengthy processes in administrative departments (e.g., payroll, benefits, IT)

• Killer apps often transcend departments, filling user needs (e.g., organization-wide calendars, room scheduling tools, and expanded search or document management capabilities)

• The most effective killer apps are tailored to your company’s needs

• They respond to a specific business problem

• They reflect the priorities and culture of the organization


Making a Good Intranet GreatIncorporating High-Value Services


User Research



Understanding Intranet Needs with User Research

• User research provides a foundation for effectively serving your employees and customers, and is a major building block in user experience design

• A variety of research methods can provide insight into employees’ day-to-day challenges, especially those that reduce productivity and cause frustration

• Before investing time, energy, and money in an intranet, identify your users’ key needs and prioritize the features best suited to resolving those needs

• End result: a more relevant intranet



User Research Methods and Tools

• Your organization can use a variety of user research methods to understand your employees’ needs and expectations


Light-weight methods:

• Card sorts• User surveys• Paper prototyping• Interviews

• User research is conducted not only at the beginning of an intranet design project—it is best used as a regular activity in the maintenance and evolution of your intranet

More thorough investigations:• Usability testing• Focus groups• Task analysis• Ethnographic observation• Web analytics


Choose the Best User Research Methods

• Intranets often require a mix of user research methods to understand the range of users with multiple roles, responsibilities, and subcultures

• Uncover desired uses, perceptions, and expectations with focus groups, interviews, and online surveys

• Understand how employees currently use the intranet, including current road blocks, with usability testing and web analytics

• Design organizational structures, both site-wide and at the page level, to promote findability and usability with card sorting and prototyping

• Capture business and production processes that can be more efficient and cost-effective on the intranet, with task analysis and ethnographic observation



Web Analytics: Improve Usage and Monitor ROI

• Simple tools, such as Google Analytics and Urchin, can be used to identify popular features and content

• Use key performance indicators (KPIs), tied to your intranet mission and objectives, to judge the value of content and features, benchmark and analyze performance, and report on ROI

• As your intranet matures, you will need more sophisticated analytical tools to assess complex user interactions



Examples of Intranet “Killer Apps”



Faceted Navigation for Knowledge Management

• Faceted navigation or guided navigation might not sound exciting, but we have seen it increase content consumption and findability, thereby increasing productivity

Challenge:

• A large government agency had a vast repository of regulations, policies, and procedures that was difficult to search

• During user research, employees expressed a need to access the collection frequently under time-sensitive circumstances. This information was essential to performing their jobs and yet searching for information was frustrating and time consuming.


Example One


Faceted Navigation for Knowledge Management

Solution:

• Aware that not everyone has the same job, the new faceted navigation and search functionality allows each person to access the information from his or her unique perspective

• Information is returned in broad categories, allowing employees to drill down to what they need within a reliable context

• A critical part of the effort included mining the content and cleaning the data in order to present it in a uniform way


Example One


Performance Dashboard for Management• Business intelligence can be a powerful intranet tool for mature organizations

Challenge:

• A telecommunications company needed to harness the activities of its sales representatives to provide information to its executives for decisions, but not everyone reported data in the same manner

• The organization distributed its business performance reports in hard copy or by email, disrupting workflow and failing to provide executive management with a comprehensive overview of employee, project, and financial performance


Example Two


Performance Dashboard for ManagementSolution:

• An infrastructure was designed to capture and present information for a wide range of roles, with appropriate user-level security

• By implementing standards for collecting and storing consolidated data, information from throughout the organization can be combined for analysis

• A new dashboard provides essential executive level information in an accessible format (e.g., financial data, project status, and employee performance)


Example Two

• Individuals can access and contribute real-time information anytime


Customized Search Tools• Intranet users, in particular, expect advanced and responsive search capabilities.

Challenge(s):

• A broadcasting company with a large number of affiliates needed to deliver, on demand, clips from thousands of hours of programming

• Consider the scenario in which a controversial comment aired on a program, and an affiliate wants to find that footage to decide whether to air the program locally

• Time pressure precludes reviewing full-length footage

• A large financial services firm needed to search across several independent resources

• Analysts needed to be sure that they were searching all relevant sources without the hassle of logging into multiple databases and sites


Example Three


Audio and Video SearchSolution:

• Added video keyword search tool that returns the desired clip with relevant time stamps

• The search tool also allows metadata filtering to identify a specific video clip within a homogeneous result set

• Instant access to specific video clips allows for better decision-making under tight deadlines


Example Three


Enterprise Search

Solution:

• The search engine was configured to index resources across the enterprise (i.e., intranet resources as well as external databases, Sharepoint sites, etc.)

• The more flexible search environment eliminates the need to log into multiple resources to conduct searches


Example Three


Other Examples of Intranet Killer Apps• Lunch menus

Believe it or not, these can be a key feature for employees, especially if there is a company cafeteria

• Self-service human resources toolsOften popular is the ability to change benefits, update information, and view paychecks

• Company directoryA robust directory with contact information, current projects, areas of expertise, and a photograph are important to larger organizations, particularly to new employees

• Performance reviewsOnline performance reviews with 360 evaluations can streamline a lengthy process

• Online collaborationSimultaneous editing capabilities, tracking, sharing, and reviewing are invaluable features for departments that produce many multiple-author documents

• ReportingFrom project status to corporate performance, online reporting is popular for the organizational transparency it creates



Takeaways and Additional Considerations



Takeaways for Success

• Make sure to have a mission with relevant, attainable objectives

• Objectives help guide allocation of resources and development

• Objectives allow for the measurement of performance

• Objectives can be used to market the intranet internally

• To build a successful killer app, identify a specific need and fill it

• User research and a user-centered design approach will increase adoption of your intranet over the long term

• Use Web analytics as a reality check once your intranet is live



Additional Considerations

• Organizational support, recruited from the highest levels, is critical

• Encourage participation by:

• Creating rules around content contribution

• Making updating easy so that information remains relevant

• Giving content owners adequate training

• Distributing content ownership

• Create a captive audience by offering items that can’t be found elsewhere

• Eliminate older versions of intranet resources—don’t let old and new coexist

• Communicate regularly with users regarding new features and popular content



Questions?

Thank you for your participation.

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