[Improving Intranet Search]
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Table of contents

  • Introduction
    The nature of the problem
    Importance of effective search
    Screenshots in this report

  • What is not in this report
    No vendors or products
    No implementation details
    Intranets, not websites
    Intranets, not enterprise search
    Not search engine optimisation

  • Key recommendations
    Making it happen

  • Principles of effective search
    Search should work like magic
    Ensure relevance
    Provide strong 'information scent'
    Build trust and confidence
    Understand search needs and behaviour
    Do work on behalf of users
    It's not a training problem

  • Selecting a new search tool
    Evaluating the current search engine
    Selecting a new search engine
    Useful resources

  • Nine steps to improved intranet search
    Summary of steps

  • Step 1: Search engine familiarisation
    Reviewing product manuals
    Limits of self-taught knowledge

  • Step 2: Understanding staff needs
    Staff interviews
    Workplace observation
    Usability testing
    Surveys
    Usage statistics
    Planning the research

  • Search personas
    Creating personas
    Two personas
    Patrick Hunt (general search user)
    Lisa Turnbull (specialist search user)

  • Step 3: Refining the search interface
    Search for general users
    Search for specialist users
    ‘Advanced’ search
    Search interface options

  • Step 4: Refining the search results
    General principles
    Search results for general users
    Search results for specialist users
    Dividing the search results page
    Options for the search results page
    Options for each search hit
    Improving search aesthetics

  • Step 5: Search engine tuning
    Search engine weightings
    Ensuring all pages are indexed
    Searching documents
    Default to ‘and’
    Spell checking
    ‘Sounds like’ and fuzzy matching
    Stemming
    Metadata

  • Step 6: Search engine usage reports
    Value of search engine reports
    Most popular searches report
    Failed searches report
    Further reports
    Implementing the reports
    Making use of the reports

  • Step 7: Key search enhancements
    Search engine synonyms
    ‘Best bets’
    Other enhancements

  • Step 8: Usability testing
    About usability testing
    What to test
    Sample tasks
    When to test
    Who to test
    Using the results

  • Step 9: Allocating ongoing resources
    Ownership of search
    Ongoing activities

  • Advanced search approaches
    Enterprise search
    Federated search
    Faceted search
    Taxonomies and search
    Search as browse
    Multilingual search
    Search as knowledge management

  • Other Step Two Designs products
    Intranet Roadmap
    Content Management Requirements Toolkit
    Staff Directories report
    Intranet Review Toolkit

For questions or comments please contact the Webmaster. Last updated 12 February 2006. © Copyright 2006, Step Two Designs Pty Ltd, ABN 99 081 019 623. All rights reserved.
Intranet Peers and Intranet Roadmap are trademarks of Step Two Designs.