Articles by Month: September 2004

Blogging style: The basic posting formats

Amy Gahran has written an excellent series of articles exploring common blogging styles. She identifies seven basic blog posting formats:

• Link-only
• Link blurb
• Brief remark
• List
• Short article
• Long article
• Series postings

[Thanks to Bill Ives.]

Posted by jamesr at 04:34 PM | Permalink
Categories: Weblogs

Weblogs as an online community management tool

Lee LeFever has written a blog entry on weblogs as an online community management tool. To quote:

Aside from participation in discussions, the community manager often needs a consistent and accessible place to have an independent voice to relate community news and information. Below you will see how a weblog may be used to fill this need.

Posted by jamesr at 03:19 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Weblogs

Making your content management system work for you

Christine Perfetti has published an interview with Jeffrey Veen on content management challenges and solutions. To quote:

Content management isn't a software problem at all. It's a process problem. By solving process problems, you often find you don't even need software. Many companies buy software thinking that it will fix their process problems. But that's like buying Microsoft Word hoping that it will make you a better writer.

Posted by jamesr at 01:57 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Critical issues in the design and implementation of employee self-service

Bridgette Di Ferdinando, Eric Lesser and Tomer Amit have written an article on designing employee self-service solutions. To quote:

While firms are making notable strides in enabling employees through Web-based self-service applications, few have begun to consider the needs of employees who do not have regular access to personal computers as part of their daily jobs. We believe that addressing the needs of these groups is critical as they often reflect large percentages of the overall employee population. In this Executive Brief, we provide a framework for understanding the self-service needs of different types of workers and highlight potential scenarios for addressing their needs.

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:28 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Interview with Tony Byrne

DCLnews has posted an interview with Tony Byrne of CMS Watch. To quote:

In many respects, we are only at the beginning of a content management era. You could say CMS is where the Internet was five years ago. Most companies still employ a surfeit of manual processes to publish electronic content. At the same time, many large enterprises that have tried to introduce greater automation are embarking on their second or third generation of CMS. They learn more each time, and are beginning to figure out what they need to accomplish to "do it right" this time. I'm beginning to see some impressive success stories out there.

Posted by jamesr at 11:29 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Brief survey on IA trends

Lou Rosenfeld is conducting a short survey on IA trends. To quote:

I've just set up a really short survey (really, it is short!) to detect past and future trends regarding where information architects work, and how much of their work is dedicated to IA. You don't have to have the title "information architect" to complete the survey; IA just needs to have been some aspect of your job at some point over the past ten years.

I've filled it in, make sure you do too...

Posted by jamesr at 11:18 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Usability testing for findability

Donna has blogged an item on usability testing for findability. To quote:

A very, very large proportion of our body of knowledge about how people approach sites, and about how we should design sites, is based on a very narrow activity of looking for known information. And in most cases finding the information is seen as the end result.

Posted by jamesr at 02:34 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Usability & user-centered design

The user-centric design trap

Bryan Eisenberg presents the argument that UCD is not robust enough for commercial websites. To quote:

User-centric design's (UCD's) aim is to enhance and improve the user's experience with software or a product. This principle has benefits, but can it translate seamlessly to the commercial Web design process? Do UCD principles result in a customer-centric Web site that satisfies the diverse needs of potentially millions of visitors?

[Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre.]

Posted by jamesr at 09:59 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Managing the CMS selection project

I've been working with a large educational organisation on their project to select a content management system. Beyond all the hard work they put into developing a good tender document, they've done a few things that I thought were worth sharing here:

• They setup an announcements e-mail list for the project, sending out monthly messages giving a summary of progress, current activities, etc. Nice point: it's not just sent to the project team, but to both internal stakeholders and outside parties (such as myself).

  It contains useful, concrete details, without any hype. It's also sent out on a regular basis, which greatly increases its value.

• They've established a wiki, for use by the evaluation team (and other internal stakeholders) to easily capture comments and observations on the CMS products being evaluated. Simple but effective...

All in all, this is a well-run project...

Posted by jamesr at 02:30 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

CM Professionals is launched

Today marks the launch of the CM Professionals, a global association for those in the field of content management. To quote:

A group of thirty content management experts from around the world has announced the formation of CM Professionals, an international community of content management professionals whose purpose is to further best practices based on shared experiences of experts and peers.

CM Pros offers a members-only mailing list, a collaborative website, discussion forums, issue-oriented group blogs, knowledge wikis, syndicated web services, a job board, a professional directory and a calendar of face-to-face meeting opportunities.

(Note: the website is still in it's infancy, and is being further improved/fixed as we speak...)

Posted by jamesr at 10:28 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Launch of Global Knowledge Review

David Gurteen (in conjunction with Bizmedia Publishing) have just published the first edition of the Global Knowledge Review. To quote:

We are inviting you to join a knowledge conversation. Wherever you are in the world, whatever your occupation or profession you have so much in common with many people across the globe.

Issues of learning, creativity, innovation, personal development, and corporate and personal knowledge management are all important to you.

For the first time, one publication will help you engage on these topics with leading minds across the globe. Global Knowledge Review has already started a dialogue with leading thinkers in different parts of the world who are willing to share their expertise and experience.

(I was pleased to have the opportunity to write an article for the inaugural edition, and you can download a full copy of this edition.)

Posted by jamesr at 10:08 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Managing and growing your intranet (New Zealand)

Just a reminder about the Managing and growing your intranet workshops I'll be running in Auckland (18-19 October) and Wellington (20-21 October). We'll be covering a wide range of topics in the two days:

• Intranet Challenges
• Planning Intranet Activities
• Intranet "Killer Apps"
• Structuring your Intranet
• Intranet as a Strategic Business Tool
• Promoting Your Intranet
• Intranet Goals
• Identifying Intranet Needs
• Selecting a Content Management System
• Implementing a Content Management System

Posted by jamesr at 12:43 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

User research abroad: Handle logistics in four easy steps

Indi Young has written an article on conducting user research abroad. To quote:

Fortunately, there are simple, clear ways to accommodate linguistic, cultural, and monetary differences when conducting user research. Follow these four easy steps for a successful interview abroad.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:47 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Information architecture guidelines

Lou Rosenfeld has written a blog entry on information architecture guidelines. To quote:

Oddly I've never really come across what I'd call a true, comprehensive IA guide; just fragments thereof scattered here and there. And, in a way, this sounds like a question for the technical communicators out there, with its focus on writing and format.

As with any help content, much of the challenge revolves not so much around which guidelines to create, but where and when to make them available. Seeing IA guidelines as a singular blob to be stowed away in a stand-alone publication or site misses the point of documentation (and maybe this explains the dearth of comprehensive IA guides?).

Posted by jamesr at 02:26 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Making a market in knowledge

Lowell Bryan has written an article on approaches to sharing knowledge. To quote:

Put simply, there is great value in sharing, across a whole company, proprietary insights into customers, competitors, products, production techniques, emerging research, and the like. In practice, of course, companies find it far more difficult than do individuals to take advantage of all this knowledge. An individual's knowledge is self-contained, always available. But in companies -- including small ones -- it can be hard to exploit the valuable knowledge in the heads of even a few hundred employees, particularly if they are scattered in different locations. In a large, diverse company, the task expands to cover thousands of highly educated professionals and managers spread across a variety of specialities, locations, even countries. But difficult as it may be to profit from this diffused knowledge, the power that such large-scale interaction yields can dwarf what individuals or small teams, however brilliant or effective, can accomplish.

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 12:04 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Trust-building for a virtual team

Peter Andrews has written an article on building trust in virtual teams. To quote:

Establishing trust among members of a virtual team is a prerequisite for being able to work as a team. Coworkers can help build trusting relationships in several ways: clearly communicating the value each brings to the team, demonstrating commitment to meet team expectations and being thorough enough to catch and fix the problems that will inevitably pop up from time to time.

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 11:59 AM | Permalink
Categories: James' articles

Integrating CSS with content management systems

Victor Lombardi has written an article on using CSS with content management systems. To quote:

Building CSS editing features into our content management systems allows us to make style changes as easily as we make content changes. In the future, managing the design of a Web site at the tactical level will be as easy and efficient as managing content.

(This article is primarily targeted at CMS vendors, or those custom-developing in-house CMS solutions.)

Posted by jamesr at 11:16 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Introduction to structured content management with XML

Kay Ethier and Scott Abel have written an article on structured content and XML, in the context of content management systems. To quote:

At the heart of managing content for re-use, however lies the job of exposing the underlying structure of that information. This article is meant to serve as an introductory primer on how to define and use information structure when managing content.

Posted by jamesr at 11:09 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

Extending a technique: Group personas

Mike Kuniavsky has written an article on a new approach: group personas. To quote:

So we decided to see if we could make group personas. At first, there was some apprehension—what if the groups are so varied as to be impossible to characterize? But as soon as we started making them, only several different kinds of personas made sense and it became a straightforward extension of Alan Cooper’s original persona technique. Here’s how we did it.

Posted by jamesr at 11:03 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Making personas more powerful: Details to drive strategic and tactical design

George Olsen has written an article on making personas more powerful. To quote:

How can something that feels so right be so wrong? Personas ought to be one of the defining techniques in user-focused design. Lots of professionals create them, yet too often the personas end up being too vague to guide a product's focus. They often lack the detail to be useful in guiding low-level design trade-offs. And, as typically done, personas have been too narrowly focused. They often aren't helpful in identifying the information a user needs or creates. Nor do they have much to say about the sensory and emotional aspects of user experience.

Posted by jamesr at 10:37 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Launched: Intranet Roadmap

I'm extremely excited to announce the launch of our new product: the Intranet Roadmap. This provides the first methodology that describes all the activities required to develop (or redevelop) an intranet.

Beyond just implementing software or redesigning the site, the Intranet Roadmap covers activities in five key streams:

• strategy
• design
• content
• change & communications
• technology

The Intranet Roadmap is delivered in two forms:

• full colour A1 wallchart
• supporting 54 page booklet

The wallchart lists the key activities required in each of the project streams. It also highlights which activities (such as usability testing, affinity diagramming, personas and collaborative design) can be used to support individual activities.

The supporting booklet then provides an overview of every activity and technique listed on the Intranet Roadmap, as well as linking to further resources and information.

[Product details and online ordering]

Posted by jamesr at 05:37 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information architecture, Intranets, Usability & user-centered design

Latest thinking in usability & IA (Brisbane, Australia)

We've just announced a Brisbane date (18 November) for our half-day Latest thinking in usability and IA seminar. Details as follows:

This half-day seminar will expose you to some of the latest ideas and approaches being explored in the fields of usability and information architecture. The current thinking in the industry will be summarised, introducing practical ideas to use in the workplace.

This seminar is part of an ongoing series to introduce you to the latest thinking from across the globe, taking academic research, relevant projects and practical implementations and providing ideas on ways to improve the experience of your users.

This seminar explores the following topics:

• faceted classification
• shape of information
• card-based classification evaluation
• personas

Full brochure and registration form (87k PDF)

Posted by jamesr at 12:19 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Usability & user-centered design

CMS Myth #3: Products are pretty similar

This is something that I hear quite often, when talking to vendors or prospective purchasers:

Myth: Content management systems are pretty similar in capabilities, and are rapidly converging on a single feature-set.

In my experience, however, this is far from the case. Instead, I would say:

Reality: CMS products have less than 30% common capabilities, with huge variation in designs and approaches. Moreover, vendors are still looking to distinguish themselves in a crowded market, and products are therefore continuing to diverge.

From what I've seen, vendors have all taken a different approach to the development of their CMS products, based on: technical architecture, strategic vision, key markets, key areas of capabilities, and more.

The net result is that while they all have roughly similar areas of functionality (authoring, workflow, versioning, publishing, etc), it's how they provide capabilities in these areas that are different.

Some random examples:

• Some products are specifically designed to support sites that are only three levels deep (which can be an advantage as it offers simplicity), while others have been engineered for huge sites (which can be good or bad, depending on your needs).
• Every product offers some metadata capabilities, but I've seen dozens of different interface designs, methods of configuration and administration.
• Workflow can range from a single checkbox saying "Page is live" through to graphical interfaces for dragging-and-dropping workflow steps.

You get the idea... in practice, it's these differences which will make or break your project.

I also don't see products converging on a common design or feature-set in the next year or two either. At present, the competitive pressure is still driving innovation, and there is no advantage in consistency.

It's for this reason that I recommend a requirements-driven selection process, and why the Requirements Toolkit contains business requirements, not technical implementation details.

Posted by jamesr at 11:16 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Why e-learning is so difficult to eat

Patrick Lambe has written an article on the challenges of implementing e-learning. To quote:

To do enterprise e-learning really well, beyond the technical competencies present already in HR and IT, you have to be able to marry deep understanding of the operational needs at the front line, strategic direction, consulting and change management skills, quality and performance metrics, information architecture and usability design, workflow analysis and process redesign, culture influencing, and superb communication and negotiation skills.

Posted by jamesr at 10:53 AM | Permalink
Categories: E-learning

Book review: The E-Myth Revisited

The E-Myth Revisited
Michael E. Gerber

This was one of the books on my reading list with the aim of continuing to improve the way Step Two Designs operates. As a small business, there is the ever-present challenge of managing our current operations, while positioning ourselves for further growth.

This book started well, by describing the Entrepreneurial Myth, where someone becomes enthused about the concept of "working for themselves" and therefore takes the (often-misguided) step of setting up their own business. Gerber then describes three phases of business growth (infancy, adolescence, maturity), the behaviours at each stage, and the challenges to confront.

Gerber also takes the interesting approach of describing every small-business owner has having a split personality (The Entrepreneur, The Technician, The Manager), and how the inevitable conflicts between these roles often leads to business failures.

Up to this point, I was interested, and could see a lot of parallels to my business experiences and history.

Gerber then goes onto describe a solution, and unfortunately, this is franchising. In fact, Gerber only presents one approach, which is to create a new "business process" franchise, leading into having dozens, hundreds or thousands of stores.

It quickly becomes apparent that Gerber is solely focused on evangelising the benefits of franchising, and uses McDonald's repeatedly as the "ideal" business approach and model.

In Gerber's world-view, the only way to run a successful business is to establish rigid business systems and processes, enforce consistency in all aspects, and hire staff with no prior experience so they can be "molded" to fit their job roles and ethos.

Scattered liberally through all of this are references to Gerber's company (E-Myth Worldwide), their proprietary approaches, and where their services would be useful. Subtly done, but nonetheless, it becomes apparent that this book is just one big advert for Gerber's company.

All in all, this an above-average book from one of the earliest "get rich" gurus, and while there is some useful information to be gained, the only person who's likely to become truly rich from the advice is Gerber himself.

Overall score: 2/10

Posted by jamesr at 12:50 PM | Permalink
Categories: Book & product reviews

Information architecture research

Peter Morville has posted a blog entry on information architecture research, containing many extremely useful resources. To quote:

What do we really know about information architecture? Do we know what works? Can we defend our designs? Are we improving? In preparing for my upcoming seminars, I revisited the role of research in the design process, and surveyed the literature most relevant to the practice of information architecture.

[Thanks to Tomalak's Realm.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:45 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Intranets look vainly to knowledge management

David Walker presents a perspective on intranets and knowledge management. To quote:

Sharing knowledge takes effort and skill, even between two people talking face-to-face. You don't create that by writing stuff down; you create it by creating robust relationships that give people the confidence to ask questions and learn from each other, and by encouraging the disciplines of asking questions without wasting people's time, and of answering questions with clarity and power, of telling vivid stories within a shared value system. These are the things that matter, the things businesses need to be good at.

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:10 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management

Organisation in the way: How decentralisation hobbles the user experience

Peter Merholz has written an article on organisational barriers to good user experiences. To quote:

Contrary to all the books, articles, Web sites, and workshops that suggest otherwise, the biggest problem in user experience design today is not one of practice. Any competent practitioner can dip into the current toolbox of methods and create a satisfactory product.

Right now, the biggest obstacle to good design is poor organizational structure. The fundamental makeup of most organizations runs contrary to producing quality designs, and as organizations get larger, this becomes increasingly apparent.

Posted by jamesr at 09:58 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management, Usability & user-centered design

Building an Interactive Intranet

Just a quick reminder that it's less than a month until the Building an Interactive Intranet workshop, to be held in Canberra on 29 September. To quote:

An intranet must be more than a collection of documents and static web pages to be successful and sustainable. Increasingly, organisations are positioning their intranets as a 'business tool', instead of just a publishing platform.

This one-day Intranet Peers in Government workshop will explore how public-sector intranets can make this transition to an interactive intranet.

Read what participants at past events have said, and you'll realise this shouldn't be missed!

Posted by jamesr at 11:54 AM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations, Intranets

'Knowledge sharing' should be avoided

The second CM Briefing is on the issues with knowledge sharing as a concept. To quote:

One of the goals of many knowledge management (KM) projects is to 'support and/or increase knowledge sharing'. While on the surface this is both a sensible and desirable goal, in practice it is often ineffective.

This briefing explores some of the issues with the goal of 'knowledge sharing', and proposes an alternative approach that can be applied to knowledge management projects.

Posted by jamesr at 11:45 AM | Permalink
Categories: James' articles, Knowledge management

Choosing your information delivery channels

The first of the two CM Briefings this month is on choosing your information delivery channels. To quote:

While the intranet is rightly positioned as the key delivery channel for information within most organisations, it must also be recognised that not all staff will be reached using solely the intranet.

In many organisations, there are staff who have limited (or no) access to computers, or whose jobs makes the intranet less relevant to their needs. Focusing just on the intranet platform may mean that these staff are not provided with the information they need to conduct their jobs.

It is therefore important to consider all the 'delivery channels' when planning an overall information management and communications strategy.

Posted by jamesr at 11:31 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, James' articles

Content reuse in practice

My KM Column article this month is on content reuse in practice. To quote:

Content reuse' is often seen as one of the key benefits to be gained by implementing a content management system (CMS). It is certainly true that there are considerable advantages in being able to use a single page (or piece of content) in multiple locations on a single site, across multiple sites, or in different published formats.

The reality however is that few organisations are able to realise this vision of content reuse in practice. Instead, content reuse is typically only used in a few limited situations, with authoring and publishing continuing unchanged to a large extent.

This article explores the reality of content reuse, with the aim of presenting a practical view of content reuse, how it can be implemented in common situations, and the barriers to adoption that exist in many situations.

Posted by jamesr at 11:24 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, James' articles

Topic map design patterns for information architecture

Techquila has published an article on topic map design patterns, for use in information architecture. To quote:

Software design patterns give programmers a high level language for discussing the design of software applications. For topic maps to achieve widespread adoption and improved interoperability, a set of topic map design patterns are needed to codify existing practices and make them available to a wider audience. Combining structured descriptions of design patterns with Published Subject Identifiers would enable not only the reuse of design approaches but also encourage the use of common sets of PSIs. This paper presents the arguments for developing and publishing topic map design patterns and a proposed notation for diagramming design patterns based on UML. Finally, by way of examples, the paper presents some design patterns for representation of traditional classification schemes such as thesauri, hierarchical and faceted classification.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 06:48 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Study: Facets on the web

Kathryn La Barre has published the preliminary results of a study into the use of facets on the web. To quote:

This is the project homepage for the preliminary study: Adventures in faceted classification: A brave new world or a world of confusion? presented July, 2004 at ISKO in London, England. This work continues as my dissertation topic as described in my qualifying paper, Faceted Maps of Knowledge and Domains: "Peeling the onion of an idea," an examination of the use of Facet Analysis in website design.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 05:41 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Understanding organisational culture for knowledge sharing

Maish Nichani has written an article on understanding organisational culture, as part of knowledge management initiatives. To quote:

Culture encompasses the values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviour of an organisation. Culture is how things get done in organisations. It is also a well-known fact that an organisation’s culture shapes its learning orientation. It is therefore important to understand the cultural aspects of the organisation before planning any initiative in e-learning or knowledge management.

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:47 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Intranet trends to watch for

Shiv Singh has written an article on intranet trends, looking into the future. To quote:

So what is in store for intranets next? As an intranet manager, what should you be worrying about? How can you create greater business value through your corporate intranet? Is your intranet going to be most impacted by a new technology, a new business idea or something else? Or is it all just about information retrieval?

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 09:51 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

IA Heuristics for Search Systems

Lou Rosenfeld has written some excellent heuristics for search systems. To quote:

Another day, another project, another set of IA heuristics. A client asked me to kick the tires of their search system, so I decided to expand on the search aspects of the information architecture heuristics that we came up with a couple weeks back.This time, I tried to align and categorize these guidelines with some common steps users take when searching a site.

Posted by jamesr at 09:40 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Search tools

Site diagrams: mapping an information space

Jason Withrow has written an article on site diagrams, as an information architecture deliverable. To quote:

To successfully communicate the characteristics of an information space I needed an approach for creating easily understood diagrams. To be useful to my audience, the diagrams must communicate the "big picture" of the website to stakeholders, while providing enough detail to be useful for the development team. A final goal was to avoid unnecessary abstraction in the diagrams; the diagram content should map closely to what will later be observed on the website (or what is currently on the website, if the diagram is part of a redesign). In fact, my desire to understand websites led me to develop a diagramming approach called "structural/functional site diagramming."

Posted by jamesr at 09:33 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Online Information 2004

I'm excited to report that I'll be travelling to London in December to speak at Online Information 2004. In addition to my talk on "ensuring intranets are successful", I'm running a one-day workshop on "Techniques for Building a Better Intranet".

I'm definitely looking forward to catching up face-to-face with some of the folks that I've been chatting with electronically over the last year...

Posted by jamesr at 10:59 AM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations