Julie Poroznuk, ABC CEBSJP Communication

May 2007

Managing and Measuring Intranet Content

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Intranet Content

What is an intranet?

An intranet is an online presence secured behind the company’s firewall.

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Developing content and applications

Focus must be on business needs in order to have long-

term value.

Intranet Content

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Effective Content is connected to the key objectives of

the organization is up to date provides timely information is meaningful to the people who will

use it is from a trusted source

Intranet Content

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Intranet Content

Developing contentIdentify key work groups you want the intranet to

serve Functional teams Business units Key projects

Ask the users:What are their content needs?What will have most impact on their performance?

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Intranet Content

Sample questions What are the most important

things your team has to do over the next couple of years?

How could you personally be twice as effective?

If you could have anything you wanted to help you do your job better, what would it be?

What are the most frustrating time-wasters in your life?

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Intranet Content

Classify the ideas according to: how they will impact the team how they will support the

strategic goals the cost and other required

resources

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Intranet Content

build a list of content opportunities and options that range from quick-wins to high impact but high-cost applications

plot the options on a chart where one axis is the estimated impact or value, and the other the cost or difficulty

Value

Cost

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Intranet Content

The oddities of Web space no sense of scale no sense of direction no sense of location

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Intranet Content

Finding Information “no more than three clicks” what really counts is how hard each click is card sorting people read computer text 28% slower than

printed text 79% of users only scan web pages

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Intranet Content

re-purpose content chunking shorter pages = less scrolling get rid of half the words - and

then do that again avoid happy talk (intro,

welcome..)

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Intranet Content

keep the important stuff “above the fold”

use headings, sub-headings, point form

avoid instructions - should be self-explanatory

simple graphics

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Intranet Content

Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading

“Forcing users to browse PDF files makes usability approximately 300% worse compared to HTML pages. Only use PDF for documents that

users are likely to print.”Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox

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Managing the Content

content should be created, owned and managed by the people who own the knowledge

central team members should– help content contributors improve the

service they provide– identify areas not being served by the

intranet– work as advisors for new and special

projects

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Managing the Content

employees should be able to update content independently

IT bottlenecks reduce efficiency empower non-technical contributors establish work flow for content

creation

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Managing the Content

content management software should make it easy for you to set up the:

– page templates– approval processes– user roles– rules about who should be responsible each

content area

this should not require extensive database development or specialized programming

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Measuring Content

Measurement Guidelines simple metrics related to business

objectives can be very powerful don't measure because you can - but

because it is meaningful use a mixture of quantitative and

qualitative metrics stories are more powerful than statistics

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Measuring Content

Using metrics allows targets to be set success to be assessed ROI to be estimated problems to be corrected

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Measuring Content

Implementation metrics

System usage web usage statistics search engine usage messages sent/posted other knowledge creation measures knowledge use

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Measuring Content

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Measuring Content

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Measuring Content

Number of users hits page requests single page visits visits unique visits user sessions clickstream

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Measuring Content

information quality information currency user feedback maintenance costs staff efficiency printing costs distributed authoring process efficiency, reduced time transaction costs

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Measuring Content

Customer Service Metrics product sales lead conversion customer satisfaction consistency of advice call handling time transactions processed support requests product development cycle

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Measuring Content

Cultural Metrics success stories, anecdotes staff morale, satisfaction cultural change staff learning

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Measuring Content

Guidelines and Tips be specific determine a baseline automate measures measure the right things less measures, not more effect of other activities re-evaluate metrics

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Measuring Content

analyze log files regularly and act on findings

site statistics can be very misleading

focus on the user combine methods remember the big picture

28http://www.usability.gov/process.html

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What you don’t need a Ph.D. in Psychology a high-tech lab with lots of test

apparatus eye tracking device multimillion dollar budget

Usability Testing

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The six steps of testing develop test plan select participants prepare test materials conduct the test debrief the participant transform data into findings and recommendations

Usability Testing

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Test ObjectivesExamples: How easily can users locate the benefits

information they need to determine their level of coverage?

How easily can users make changes to personal information?

Usability Testing

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Match tasks to test objectives Your child needs braces. Find out

how much your dental plan will pay for orthodontist services.

You just got married. Register your new spouse as an eligible dependent for benefits coverage.

Usability Testing

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Examples of conditions for success:

The user should be able to find the correct information in less than three minutes.

No more than four clicks should be needed to find the information.

Usability Testing

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Examples of Measures Excellent: completed the task easily with time

and clicks to spare. Acceptable or OK: completed the task within or

close to requirements Unacceptable: did not complete the task, or

took much longer and more clicks to find the information than is acceptable.

Usability Testing

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How many participants? typical test has 6 to 12 participants three for a simple test is an absolute

minimum (remove idiosyncrasies) three to five: enough information to be

comfortable with your conclusions

Usability Testing

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How do I select participants? actual users, if known (average employees) don’t use developers of the site make sure the participants show up provide some reward for participation include at least a few LCUs (least competent users) beware of highly seasoned users

Usability Testing

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Who should conduct the tests?Test Monitor most critical role needs to objective sometimes this person is the whole testing team sometimes an external party is the best choice

Usability Testing

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Data Logger takes down information as participant performs

tasks usually logs several types of data:

– time elapsed– number of clicks– path of clicks– success or failure

Usability Testing

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Conduct a Pilot Test test drive the tasks makes sure everything works properly don’t do this at the last minute preferably with someone who would

qualify as an actual participant

Usability Testing

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Analyzing the ResultsLevels of severity prevents completion of task creates significant delay and

frustration has a minor effect indicates possible future

enhancements

Usability Testing

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Recommending Changes consider the complexity of the

problems consult with designers/developers,

technical communicators, usability specialists

balance effort for benefit

Usability Testing

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Communicating the Results informal memo verbal report formal report

– introduction– methodology– user profile– task list– results– discussion

Usability Testing

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Usability Testing moves the discussion from what’s right and

what’s wrong to what works and what doesn’t

helps us realize that all users are not like us

The point is not to prove or disprove something, but to inform your judgement.

Usability Testing

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What is a usability review? a usability expert reviews your site and

provides a report sometimes used before a re-design can be used before testing to identify

problem areas

Usability Testing

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blogs wikis podcasts videocasts enterprise chat interactive screensavers VOIP (voice over Internet protocol)

New Media

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put at least one new item on the global home page every day

give prominence to strategic information and “new” news

facilitate content contributions from everyone

integrate services and applications

Making Intranets

Meaningful

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Executive Summary the intranet has entered maturity as a primary

information tool senior management perception of the intranet is out of

sync with reality on the ground intranets lack sufficient funding and resources decision-making is an issue customer-facing functions are largely missing from the

intranet primary strategy drivers are “building a common

culture”

Global Intranet Strategies

Survey

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primary obstacle to achieving full potential is that it is too communication-oriented and lacks integrated applications

intranet evaluation is irregular and inconsistent only 1 out of 4 organizations is obliged to demonstrate

ROI for intranet investments information flows are strongest in top-down direction 3 out of 4 have an employee directory, but only 1 out of

5 contain information about peoples’ skills and expertise

Global Intranet Strategies

Survey

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Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis) are making their way to the intranet

organizations who consider the intranet to be “business critical” are more likely to adopt Web 2.0 technologies and have stronger communication flows than average

Global Intranet Strategies

Survey

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Global Intranet Strategies Survey

What evaluation techniques do you use?

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65

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37

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Analysis of usage statistics

Informal feedback from users

Online surveys

Analysis of search logs

Focus groups

Emails to the intranet managers

Informal benchmarking with other organizations

Expert analysis

Formal benchmarking studies

Other

Online polls

Telephone interviews

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Global Intranet Strategies Survey

What is the frequency of your formal evaluations?

Once a year (29%)

At least twice a year (14%)

Have not done any yet (9%)

Not regular (48%)

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Conclusions the intranet is still in its infancy the intranet is moving towards the

individual senior management has a stronger

role to play in the intranet

Global Intranet Strategies

Survey

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Making Intranets

Meaningful

“Usability rules the Web... He or she who clicks the mouse gets to decide everything.”

-Jacob Nielsen

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Articles Metrics for knowledge and content management by James

Robertson http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_metrics/index.html

Employing Strategic Content Management for Successful Intranets by Hank Barnes http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200106/cm_06_06_01a.html

Developing business focused content and applications from Melcrum Practitioner’s Guide to Managing Intranets and Portals http://www.vigorat.com/killerappsvigorat.htm#contentappdev#contentappdev

References

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Articles Tools for Assessing Website Usage by Scott Anderson, Terri Willard,

Heather Creech and Deborah Bakker http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2001/Web_evaluation.pdf

Global Intranet Strategies Today & Tomorrow Survey, Summary of Results by Jane McConnell http://netjmc.com/engl/survey06summary.html

Looking through the Portal by Philip Weiss, Communication World, May-June 2007

Making Intranets Meaningful by Jane McConnell, Communication World, May-June 2007

References

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Usability Web Sites www.usability.gov www.useit.com www.usableweb.com www.intranetinsider.com www.humanfactors.com www.upassoc.org www.userdox.com

References