Articles by Month: June 2007

Regarding Simmer on the Bay

Just a quick followup to my earlier post on my photography exhibition. During the exhibition, there was a lot of interest in the gallery space "Simmer on the Bay", which is certainly a magnificent location.

Was I happy with the space? Yes. Would I recommend dealing with the owners, or hiring the space? No, absolutely not. Enough said.

Posted by jamesr at 02:27 PM | Permalink
Categories: Photos

Intranet case study: SimCorp

Toby Ward has posted a case study on the SimCorp intranet. To quote:

Built on Microsoft SharePoint, each 'portal' under the main SimCorp intranet portal features a portal quality score that rates the relevancy (how up-to-date) of each page or document. For instance, if a portal contains 100 documents and 97 of them are up-to-date, then the portal has a quality score of 97%. The rating scores is accompanied by a very happy smiley face icon for ratings higher than 90%, and an angry little icon for a score of 60% or less. The emotive face icons and scores reflect at a glance the content quality.

Posted by jamesr at 12:50 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Web application form design

Luke Wroblewski has written an article on web application form design. To quote:

Quite rare is the Web application that doesn't make extensive use of forms for data input and configuration. But not all Web applications use forms consistently. Variations in the alignment of input fields, their respective labels, calls to action, and their surrounding visual elements can support or impair different aspects of user behavior.

Posted by jamesr at 01:38 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Examining the photos

Examining the photos

The recent exhibition of my photography was a hugely enjoyable experience, with many very favourable comments. Thanks to all who attended the exhibition, and even if you didn't make it, the full set of photos have now been uploaded to the exhibition website.

A good number of the photos were sold, but with limited edition prints of 20, there are still copies available for all photos. Drop me a line if you'd like to purchase any mounted prints, or unframed prints for that matter.

Posted by jamesr at 10:43 PM
Categories: Photos

Intranet questions (Brisbane, Australia)

I've just finished running a very enjoyable Intranet Planning Day workshop in Brisbane. Plenty of questions and lots of interaction, just the way I like it.

For the record, here were the "big questions" raised at the beginning of the day:

• Getting management not to see it as a quick project?
• How to get staff interested and using the intranet?
• Best way to find out what users need?
• Right metadata, etc?
• Processes for publishing?
• How to engage management?
• Funding?
• Integration of systems?
• Content lifecycle?
• CMS?
• Search?
• Maintaining relevance?
• Ways to structure content?
• Content format? (HTML vs PDF)
• DM vs intranet?
• Taking away hard copies from staff?
• Identifying benefits?
• How to implement governance?
• Word processing to intranets?
• Structure of team?
• ROI?
• Maintaining organisational interest over long term?

Posted by jamesr at 07:44 PM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations, Intranets

Personalisation vs segmentation

'Personalisation' is a term very much in fashion at present. It is used by vendors to sell their products, and promoted by website and intranet managers as a way of delivering a brave new era of functionality. Separate from debates regarding the merits and approaches to personalisation, there is considerable confusion about the meaning of the word itself.

As the use of personalisation spreads, this confusion has grown. Personalisation is now routinely used for everything from 'my links' functionality, to fine-grained targeting of information to specific staff roles.

The absence of consistent terminology in this space is now causing considerable difficulty for purchasers of technology, and organisations in general. Without a clear understanding of what is meant, it is often difficult to assess the value of products, and even harder to measure the success of personalisation features.

At the risk of introducing still more terminology into this fragmented marketplace, this briefing will draw a clear line between two separate functionalities:

• Personalisation, whereby individual users can choose or configure what is delivered to them.
• Segmentation, where organisations tailor or selectively deliver information or tools to specific audience groups.

This briefing will explore each of these categories, hopefully bringing some measure of clarity to this space.

[CMb 2007-10, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 09:24 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information management, Intranets, James' articles

Start user research by talking with staff

We all know we should involve users when redesigning a website, but where do you start? There are various methods of 'cold calling' end-users to involve them in research activities (eg interviews, focus groups and usability testing) but there is a valuable source of information you might want to consult first.

By talking with staff in your own organisation, you can leverage the vast body of knowledge on customers (aka clients, students, associates etc) who probably make up a large proportion of your website audience. This is an excellent way to not only gain an initial picture of your audience, but also to establish who has contact with clients, to be used later when recruiting users for direct research.

Who is your audience?

Your organisation may well posses a great deal of intelligence about customers and other users of your website. In this case, your task is relatively straightforward, although you may need to work a bit harder to reach all audience groups.

However, this is often not the case, and the task of getting in touch with website users to do research can be quite frustrating. This is where talking to key staff can help.

[CMb 2007-09, written by Patrick Kennedy, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 09:15 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Do staff make use of personalisation features?

Due to technology improvements, personalisation is a growing feature in both intranet and portal usage. Organisations around the world have already made their first forays into personalisation, however many more organisations are questioning what to personalise and how to go about it.

So who is using personalisation and how effective it is? Early in 2007 we ran a worldwide survey to establish the extent that personalisation is being used in intranets and portals.

This article discusses the results of the survey, common themes within the survey and some observations on personalisation projects throughout the world. Comments from the survey respondents are used throughout the article.

Personalisation is seen as a desirable enhancement for intranets, and a major selling point for portals. Our key question was: to what extent do staff actually make use of these features?

[June KM Column by Catherine Grenfell, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 09:04 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information management, Intranets

Intranet Governance Guide

Maish Nichani has written an article on creating an Intranet Governance Guide. To quote:

Getting an intranet is just a start, keeping it going is what matters most. Long term benefits and efficiencies can only be realised when the intranet is responsive to the needs and requirements of business and staff. This guide gives pointers to creating a governance structure that can help sustain and manage the intranet for the long term.

Plenty of practical advice in there...

Posted by jamesr at 10:24 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Global Intranet and Portal Strategies Survey

Last year, Jane McConnell ran the most comprehensive survey ever done into global and complex intranets. The results were invaluable.

The second annual Global Intranet and Portal Strategies Survey is now open. The 2007 survey covers a range of intranet/portal topics. It has been enhanced with suggestions from 2006 participants, and includes good practices, lessons learned and an in-depth section on the use of web 2.0 technologies behind the firewall.

If you manage an intranet or portal and would like to participate, contact Jane McConnell who will send you an invitation with a personalised link to the on line survey platform. The survey is open from June 15th to August 15th. All survey participants receive a free copy of the report which will be published early October.

In 2006, over 100 organisations around the world participated in 2006. You can read a summary of the key findings in 2006 on the Globally Local blog.

There is more information about the survey on the NetStrategy/JMC web site.

Posted by jamesr at 10:18 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Squiggles help find personas

Patrick Kennedy has written an article on illustrating persona concepts, as part of their development. To quote:

First, an idea to help illustrate the concept of taking explicit user research and shaping this into discrete personas. Most people I have mentored find that the most difficult step is going from research into producing the draft personas. My idea is to use Venn diagrams to show how you take the information you find out about each individual you research (through interviews, focus groups, contextual enquiry, customer data etc) and come up with an archetypal description of them all. Remember, the key is for the resulting persona to have attributes that are a common subset of the attributes possessed by all the users it represents, whilst still being accurate for each of them. So in effect you need to 'knock the corners' off the data and look at the overlap, to make something that fits all users in the group.

Posted by jamesr at 05:13 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

How to innovate on time

Scott Berkun has written an entry on how to innovate on time. To quote:

I've taught the tutorial How to innovate on time a few times now, and the big takeaway for most is the need to carve out time for failure. That's right, failure.

Posted by jamesr at 09:34 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

CMS deployment patterns

Seth Gottlieb has written an excellent article on CMS deployment patterns. To quote:

One of my favorite terms in the world of Web Content Management is "baking vs. frying," which refers to when presentation templates are applied to render pages out of structured content. Baking style rendering systems generate pages when content is published. Frying systems generate pages on the fly when they are requested by the end user. Whether a system bakes or fries content tells a lot about its architecture and what it is good at. Baking systems are great for high volume sites that do not need to personalize content. Frying systems excel when requirements include personalization, access control, and other presentation logic that uses information about the user in order to decide what to show and how.

Posted by jamesr at 09:19 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Presenting findings about emotional responses

Iain Barker has written a post on presenting findings about emotional responses. To quote:

I like to experiment with different ways to present the findings from design research so they are engaging for my clients. I would be interested to get your thoughts on my recent experiment of combining Microsoft's Product Reaction Cards with tag clouds.

Posted by jamesr at 05:12 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Leading and creating collaboration in decentralised organisations

Heather M. Caruso, Todd Rogers and Max Bazerman have written a working paper on creating collaboration in decentralised organisations. To quote:

No matter how a multi-divisional organization is designed, it will need to find effective ways for its units to spontaneously and responsively cross boundaries. This paper discusses 3 key barriers to collaboration and information-sharing within an organization, and offers 3 strategies to overcome them.

Posted by jamesr at 04:59 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Knowledge management

Card sort analysis spreadsheet

Donna Maurer has uploaded her card sort analysis spreadsheet. To quote:

Over the past few years I have been slowly developing and refining a spreadsheet I use for analysis of card sorts. I have used it on many projects and find it invaluable for helping me manage the data and spot patterns. I use it to analyse results from physical (i.e. not software) open card sorts. It could quite easily be used for closed card sorts as well, though I haven't done that as I don't do closed sorts.

I have refined it to the point where I'm happy with it, and have prepared instructions for it. The instructions and spreadsheet are completely free for you to use however you wish.

Posted by jamesr at 10:38 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Joseph Busch today in Melbourne

I've just spent the day sitting in on Joseph Busch's workshop in Melbourne, as the first stop in the tour that we've organised. It's been a great day, and I've learnt a lot about how to make taxonomies to work in practice. My biggest take-home insight has been the comparative power of faceted approaches to classification compared to having one huge hierarchical structure, and how this can be applied to websites, intranets, etc.

It was also great to see how to test taxonomies, in a variety of practical ways:

• testing draft taxonomies to see that users can find things
• checking that producers correctly tag items
• checking that items are sensibly distributed between the categories

All of these are very simple ways of ensuring that the taxonomy is more than just theoretically sound, it actually works in practice.

Joseph is very quietly-spoken, constantly sharing stories from the projects he's been involved in. And these are some serious organisations that he's worked for, including Oracle, Microsoft, IMF, Dell, Home Depot, HP, Harvard Business Publishing, NASA and a pile of other US Federal Government agencies.

Anyway, there are still places for Sydney and Canberra, if you book quickly.

Posted by jamesr at 05:06 PM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations, Information architecture

Walking through your product design with stakeholders

Daniel Szuc has written a very thorough article on walking through product design with stakeholders. To quote:

You are the lead designer -- or perhaps even the sole designer on a product team. You have just completed your product design, and it’s time to walk through your design approach with the project stakeholders, including management, developers, and users. What do you need to do to prepare for your presentation? This article provides some basic tips to help you better prepare to walk through your product designs with stakeholders.

Posted by jamesr at 03:38 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Expensive things must look advanced

Oscar Berg has written an item commenting that expensive things must look advanced. To quote:

I know this by now - simplicity does not sell. Of course, most users like simple and easy to use applications once they start using them. But before they start using it, someone probably has to pay a lot for it. And it needs to be advanced (complex) if that someone is going to buy it. It is as simple as that.

Posted by jamesr at 03:27 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Four factors of agile UX

Luca Mascaro has written an article on what he calls agile UX, that is, applying UX techniques in highly-constrained projects. To quote:

The site was online after three weeks. Though the project was not perfect, it turned out well. How did we manage this, considering that we followed all of the usual design phases? Our success was primarily the result of four factors that we were able to exploit and manage during the design project, which enabled us to make design decisions quickly and move on with great agility.

Posted by jamesr at 03:20 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

The best creative thinking books

Scott Berkun has written an entry on the best creative thinking books. To quote:

Between teaching a course on creative thinking at UW, and writing a book on innovation, I've read dozens of books on creative thinking, from handbooks, to games, to psychology literature. Here are the four books I'd recommend as a starter library: they range in focus from handbooks to theory to history.

Posted by jamesr at 03:02 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Usability testing is really design research

Iain Barker has written an entry suggesting that usability testing is really design research. To quote:

If I could do a bit of time travel I'd go back and change the term "usability testing". Although the title is quite descriptive, it is ultimately too close to "user acceptance testing". And the use of the testing word is definitely a problem.

Posted by jamesr at 07:13 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Staff induction - it's just learning

Shawn Callahan has written a piece on staff induction. To quote:

I have been asking people, "How long after starting here did you feel you really knew the organisation and job you were doing?" Most people said it took them 12-18 months in a large organisation to really feel on top on things. Staff induction, therefore, needs to be more gradual and unfold over time as we experience the organisation we've joined. We need a slower and longer-term approach, one that better balances intellectual and emotional learning.

Posted by jamesr at 09:29 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Intranet Leadership Forum in Canberra

The Intranet Leadership Forum is up and running in Sydney and Melbourne, our first workshop in Canberra is soon. The key dates for the Canberra Chapter are:

3rd July, 2007 Where collaboration tools fit in by James Robertson

This industry briefing explores opportunity for new approaches to intranets and information management and presents an innovative and effective for model for collaboration that outlines:

• three levels of information management within organisations
• inwards and outwards focused information
• where collaboration tools should be focused
• taking a 'portfolio' approach to collaboration technologies
• managing the relationship between collaboration tools and other systems

Free for members of the Intranet Leadership Forum. A session will be held with members before the briefing to introduce members, finalise workshops dates and decide on future workshop topics.

31st July, 2007 first Canberra workshop

The topics for the workshop are selected by the members, some of the potential topics are:

• Search - How to optimise the search engine you already have including techniques and practical tips.
• The suite of Information Management applications - What they are and how they affect your organisation.
• Content producers - How to minimise the steps and constraints for staff producing content.
• Knowledge sharing - Does your intranet effectively support knowledge sharing, with tools or access to peoples expertise.
• Skills needed in an intranet team – What are the types of skills, how to share resources with other teams, when to use outside specialists.
• Web design skills for Intranets - The top 5 techniques for designing intranets, including usability, information architecture and where users expect to find common features.

Email Catherine if you'd like to know more...

Posted by jamesr at 03:20 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranet Leadership Forum, Intranets

Intranets -- why you should care

Patrick Kennedy has posted on why web designers should care about intranets. To quote:

Last night I presented my talk on intranets at the Sydney Web Standards Group meeting. I spoke about the topic of two of my recent posts, namely web developers have the power and intranets: the beast we love to hate. In a nutshell, I covered these points...

Posted by jamesr at 03:09 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Web development

How to make a living

Dave Pollard has written an entry about how to make a living running an innovative business. To quote:

Several readers have asked me for a five-minute summary of the iterative, lifelong process of learning what we're meant to do for a living, and making that living through Natural Enterprise. I thought this was a reasonable request, so I've illustrated it above. Here's the five-minute walk-through.

Posted by jamesr at 03:01 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Launching the Web 2.0 Framework

Ross Dawson has launched his web 2.0 framework today. To quote:

The intention of the Web 2.0 Framework is to provide a clear, concise view of the nature of Web 2.0, particularly for senior executives or other non-technical people who are trying to grasp the scope of Web 2.0, and the implications and opportunities for their organizations.

Posted by jamesr at 02:24 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Complicated

Patrick Lambe has written an article on KM strategies being seen as complicated. To quote:

Enterprise knowledge management brings its own challenges, and many of them come from the need to understand and address an organisation's infrastructure. I have written about this challenge at some length in an article called "Why KM is Hard To Do".

However, when we characterize the problem as a function of infrastructure it is still very tempting to see this as a technical problem -- ie that there is an approach or a method or a series of steps we can go through to solve it. I have been reminded very recently that techniques are not enough -- that human moral attributes also play a critical role.

Posted by jamesr at 01:38 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Intranets tomorrow - much more than today

Jane McConnell has written an entry about the intranets of tomorrow, including a nice slide from a recent presentation. To quote:

A copy of the presentation I have at Intranets.Today, Wed. 23 May in Frankfort on "Intranets Tomorrow - a glimpse into the future" can be downloaded from my web site. I'll summarise my key points in a few days - but the point of the slide you see here is that intranets tomorrow will be much more comprehensive than those we know today.

Posted by jamesr at 12:36 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets