PORTAL An Intranet Game Workshop on Planning Design

PORTAL! An Intranet Game Workshop on Planning, Design and Implementation KMWorld 2005 November 14, 2005 Peter Jones, Nick Kizirnis Redesign Research

Getting Started Welcome, Who we Are Peter Jones, Redesign Research Nick Kizirnis, Lexis. Nexis Getting to know you Name, Organization, and role only - Our Approach There’s simply too much to cover, so we will … Simulate problems through discussion Share lessons from experience Learn from each other in small groups

About this Workshop … What’s to Learn? You don’t need another lecture You may need to know how to deal … Objectives: We want you to come away with: “I can do this. ” “This makes more sense to me now. ” “This helps me fit together new ideas with what I know. ” How? By identifying key decision points. By knowing how to leverage your priorities. Knowing that you have options.

How will this work? An Agenda Start with your business. Drivers and constraints of business A brief exercise Then Planning, Requirements, … Nick, then Pete talks – briefly. Another exercise (in small groups) The break for coffee Then Design, Implementation. What can we say in 20 minutes? A Design exercise, then wrap up.

What are the handouts? o o An outline of the content space Our outline of the problem space è We look at practices – team practices o o What to do, when, and how. These are the Big Ideas for: è Leverage – Making the most of your position è Priorities – Focus only on what’s important è Options - when all else fails!

Cut to the chase … o A definitive report on portal design, usability, & implementation: Goodwin and Nielsen (2002 -2005) Building Intranet Portals - a Report From the Trenches o o We have learned from Nielsen’s work - but have our own experience to add. In each content area, we note applicable Nielsen findings and lessons learned: è Endorsed è Critiqued

Know your Business (Why you have this job) Business Drivers: Prime motivators for action and change. Business strategy is a coordinated response to drivers of the industry. - Competition: Strong products - Cost: Reduce systemic costs and waste - Control: Improve operational effectiveness Organizational Needs: - Efficient communication across enterprise a single portal or communications path - Self-service of employee benefits and registrations - Resource for managers - Support for each business function, operational/product/sales

Business and Organizational Issues Inquire about the real Business Needs Typical Needs as Given: - Productivity - Eliminate duplicate technology & communications - Single portal for company communication How do you measure ROI? When facing portal decisions, call on business needs!

Organizational Infrastructure Does legacy pre-determine your portal? • How do you do portals? By type of technology? By function? By organization? By who pays? Project types: 1. Initial Building from scratch 2. Conversion e. g. from Intranet to Portal 3. Major Redesign Dealing with patchwork 4. Update Adding features, search, etc.

Key Portal Features 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Search Single Sign-On Integration of multiple intranet sites Business Process Coordination Document Management Self-Service (e. g. . benefits, employee data) Personalization

Organizational Lessons From Nielsen, 02 -05 People issues are the biggest cost in portal implementation. We agree – that’s why our focus on decision-making process. Involving users from an early stage eases acceptance problems. (Unhappy users mean low ROI. ) Yes, but who are users? Employees? Managers? How many? Set up a cross-function steering group (users feel they have a voice, & to overcome resistance). Have 2 -3 feedback groups – Management steering group, Customer Advisory Board (CAB), and User Council. Stop funding non-compliant projects to speed standardization. Yes, but who, how? Portal teams do not control that funding! If a portal is good, people will see its benefits eventually. Portals take over! Resistance is futile. Benefits must be immediate.

Your Exercise 1: Individual Portal “Problems” è Work in pairs, interview each other è Ask each other & take notes: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Tell me about your job Your current problem Who is/are your customers? What do they (customers) want? What are you able to deliver? è Post your notes to flip charts – by Project Type

Portal Planning Gather Your Resources è Who are you and what do you? è Who else is out there and how can they help? è Creating the “team” Be a project manager è Document your work è Working with teams, scope, budget and schedule Be a product manager è è Consider the enterprise Know your audience, plan for user research Connect back to why you are building the portal Know your portal(s)!

Content Planning o What is the Content? è Subjects è Structure o Who owns the Content? è Establish accountability o Where is the Content? è Location, location(s) è Centralize or de-centralize o Tell us all about the content è Content Inventory/Audit è ROT: Redundant, Out-Dated, Trivial

Technical Planning Take IT to lunch è Be partners not adversaries è Checks, Balances and being “in the know” Read the Manual (or the Cliff Notes) è Potential user, technical, budget, political issues “It’s slow” … systems testing è How well does the current system work? è What are the issues? è How much better is the solution? Really?

Planning & Content Management Lessons From Nielsen, 02 -05 Portals do not solve intranet usability issues. They can create them. True – has anyone launched a portal that wasn’t used? Portal tech may demand tradeoff between speed & flexibility. Decide which is most important to you. (But having flexibility & lots of design options doesn’t always improve user experience. ) “Decide on your priorities before choosing. ” How to determine your priorities? Think about the different ways content might be used once in portal. Don’t just think about – find out from your user base. You will need central guidelines to ensure usable content. Rules can make users lives easier in the long run. Consider service-level agreements for internal providers. (And how is this going? )

Requirements, a dynamic vision Where you discover them: 1. Organizational – Overall business and organization needs (See Section 1) 2. Team – Tools, content, and resources for product teams and working groups 3. Employee – Individual task needs, portlets and tools for getting job done

Enterprise portal stakeholders Corporate 1 Sales Operations, IT, CTO HR, Benefits Corp Communications 2 Product Management Projects, Development Workgroups 3 Users Users

Requirements Gathering Team process – with Project Mgt, Business unit An actively managed process – be proactive. Meaning, try thinking like your customers. Practices – To learn, try one for each customer: è Customer Roundtables è Focus Groups è User Surveys è Personas & Task Scenarios: Organizational line managers Employees Staff (e. g. , HR, Corp Comm, Purchasing) è Contextual Interviews / Observations è Usability Testing (Test current & identify new)

Task & Content Requirements è A strong task model simplifies everything. è Trade-offs between business needs as stated & tasks. è Structure content by Function not Department è What are the tasks all employees will accomplish? Document your Task Model (or Use Cases) Review with stakeholders. è Prioritize your features, tools, and gadgets è Better to have fewer good tools than many mixed-purpose & utility

Being Agile – with Requirements? Analyzing requirements? è You will not have time to analyze. è Instead, creative decision-making è Setting priorities within & among customers, features, user tasks Rapid, Adaptive Development è Agile process (Highsmith, Cockburn) è Requirements largely speculative è Use prototypes, collaborative design è Rapid revision, quick feedback tests See agilemanifesto. com

Being Agile means: Timeboxing è Establish delivery cycles & timeboxes in each è Deliver once/month è Developers meet once/day F 2 F è Customers once/week F 2 F Requirements change è Since they will change, welcome change è If you’re collaborating, no real surprises occur è Leverage your priorities to manage scope è Continuous development – portal is low-risk

User Experience & IA Information Architecture (IA) Effective structuring of content and information for communication, usability, readability. è Task & Workflow models è Content structure & guidelines è Navigation and site mapping è Page layout and structure è Finding tools: Search, results, redirection

Information Architecture methods Constraints: IA Methods: IA Products: Scope Search Templates Size, volume Content Time Legacy data User models: Personas & scenarios Task models: Activity maps Prototypes: - Page - Visual - Info design User Testing: Simple Usability Tasks = Functions Prototypes = - Paper - Wireframes - Mockup - Interactive (Depending on scale/risk, use one or all)

User Experience (UX) Considers all aspects of user interaction with site, company, brand, products. Design considerations è Site Structure è è Navigation Interface and Interaction Design Visual and Branding Design Content guidelines

Site Design Lessons From Nielsen, 02 -05 Not all portals have a single home page. - They can be unified by common navigation. A good approach to integrating divergent content. Good portal design is efficient, not fancy. - Busy users may prefer to get their jobs done quickly and go home, not play games and personalize their pages. For most corporate users, content takes priority over style. Keep it minimal - But develop a strong internal brand. Portal design reflects corporate culture (organizational values). Values can also be used as guidelines for setting priorities.

(More) Site Design Lessons From Nielsen, 02 -05 Don’t force portal IA to reflect departmental structures. -It is often better to organize information by function. Yes – but how to determine functions? Tasks? Product lines? Internationalization must work globally, not just locally. A major challenge, hugely time consuming. Information standards are more challenging than design & layout standards. Because portal templates set your design in stone. Content fluctuates wildly – so … Process: Have a specialist editor in each content area submit information to the portal.

UX & IA User Experience Evaluation Alertbox: 4 usability methods, also requirements: 1. User testing 2. Field studies 3. Design standards 4. Customer roundtables è In the push to release, what gets skipped is what can be skipped, and that’s often user testing. è Don’t skip it – do guerilla usability: Small samples of 5 users (1 -3 sets) Structured (task-based) testing - and open-ended (contextual) observation

User Experience Lessons From Nielsen, 02 -05 Usability costs extra upfront, but pays off later. It doesn’t cost that much – and it pays off right away. Don’t ever assume you know what users want. Sorry – you’re not a real user! User surveys work well for setting direction and highlighting problem areas. You will always get responses from a portal survey. … But you can learn a lot from a face to face user testing.

Implementation Development Issues è Getting the content è Testing with the team Rolling Out è Communicate! è Provide guidelines and help è What did you learn? Governance è Managing features è Who monitors and evaluates?

Implementation ROI è What are the costs of this system? è What do you get for that? Education è YOU = evangelist è Training options meet user needs Moving Forward è The team, board and/or council è What happens now?

Keep in Touch Tell us how this went! What to change … Peter Jones è è è Managing Principal, Redesign Research peter@redesignresearch. com Nick Kizirnis è è è Intranet Manager, Lexis. Nexis Nick. kizirnis@lexisnexis. com