five thousand reasons intranets suck and five ways to fix them

Five thousand reasons intranets suck and five ways to fix them

Audun RundbergMay 26th 2012

#uxce12@audunru

Photo: Joschenbacher

Original photo: flickr.com/bsabarnowl

5000 pages

22 departments

100 publishers

... and me

http://www.intranetsecrets.com/2010/05/big-intranet.html

Photo: flickr.com/rmgimages

The value of content

Well written

Not well written

Irrelevant Relevant

Yes, please!

ImproveForget it

Forget it

– Hey Gordon, we need an intranet

– Make sure it has lots of content, Bud!

– This intranet idea of yours better make us a shitload of money, or I'm gonna tear your eyeballs out and I'm gonna suck your fucking skull

1. Make work easier

2. Share knowledge

3. Build corporate culture

Most common goals

What do users need?Gerry McGovern, Netlife Research and others

14,905 answers from

multiple countries and

companies (big and small):

1. Finding people (by name,

skill or workplace)

2. Tools (register work hours,

project management...)

3. Employee info (salary...)

4. News (important news!)

– The best intranets on the planet have great executive champions

Toby Ward, Prescient Digital Media

Mobile

Mobile use vs desktop use

Mobile

Desktop

Governance

– As soon as you’ve decided that your intranet needs a piece of content, prepare for how to create, improve and delete it.

Paraphrasing Kristina Halvorson

Content strategy and governance model for Avinor’s intranet

Avinor AS

Dronning Eufemias gate 6 NO-0191 OSLO Tel: +47 815 30 550 Faks: +47 64 81 20 01

– Learn to hate information, and love helping people complete tasks

Some really smart person somewhere

12 step recovery program

for publishing addiction

... or 12 steps to finally

succeed with web content

16.00 - Xing

Content auditing

-10

-8

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

-10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10

High quality

Low quality

Low relevance High relevance

Save the planet:Don’t print your intranet

Reason No

Links to relevant information/files 8

Enough information 2

Well written 6

Good title 4

Easy to read 4

Relevant pictures 6

Most important stuff first 3

Total 10

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

– The certifier should then check with the

traveler that the trip is completed/will be

completed with the traveler before the

invoice is certified/posted in accordance

with current accounts. The invoice will be

sent to the budget owner/approver.

Tips

• Don’t audit everything if you’re going to start all over anyway

• You can audit a small part as an exercise to get an

understanding of the site

• Never do it alone

• Never do it on behalf of someone else

• Get stakeholders involved. Being told something is crap is not

as effective as realizing it yourself.

• Agree on what the site’s goals are and what criteria for quality

you should use

Pair writing

Page title

Purpose of this page

Target audience

User tasks

Trigger words

1. People work together in

pairs

2. They pick a page and fill

out the form together

3. Each pair presents their

completed form to the

whole group

Making a purchase

•Get people to follow internal procedures•Save money

All employees

•How do I purchase something?•Access to database of suppliers

Purchasing, contracts, suppliers

Tips

• Decide what you’re going to work on

• Arrange a workshop with the right content contributors

• Tell half of them to bring a laptop

• Explain the purpose. No pressure!

• Tell people to pair up: one person writes, the other asks

questions

• Switch roles after 45 minutes

• Present in plenary

Thank you!