How To Drive Intranet Adoption

Architects of the User Experience

How to Drive Intranet Adoption
Natalie Buda and Jessie Collins


Introduction

NavigationArts, LLC 2


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



Clear Goals

• 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



A User-Centric Approach

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



Making a Good Intranet Great
Incorporating High-Value Services

• 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



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: More thorough investigations:
• Card sorts • Usability testing
• User surveys • Focus groups
• Paper prototyping • Task analysis
• Interviews • Ethnographic observation
• Web analytics

• 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



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”



Example One

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 Two

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 Management
Solution:
• 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)
• Individuals can access and contribute real-time information anytime


Example Three

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 Search
Solution:
• 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



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 tools
Often popular is the ability to change benefits, update information, and view paychecks
• Company directory
A robust directory with contact information, current projects, areas of expertise, and a
photograph are important to larger organizations, particularly to new employees
• Performance reviews
Online performance reviews with 360 evaluations can streamline a lengthy process
• Online collaboration
Simultaneous editing capabilities, tracking, sharing, and reviewing are invaluable
features for departments that produce many multiple-author documents
• Reporting
From 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.

www.navigationarts.com
info@navigationarts.com
703-584-8920


How To Drive Intranet Adoption

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