> Archived Articles   In the collection Global Intranets Fighting Poverty in the Global Intranet The Myth of Global and Local Content Culture influences information architecture Building Trust in International Intranets Make-or-break Decisions in International Intranets The Complexity of the International Enterprise: What this means for the Intranet “Although there may be no right answer, you need to be able to explain why you made the choices you did.”

Culture influences information architecture (March 2004) Workshop conversations There is nothing like an information architecture workshop in an international company to bring out differences in how people work and what they want to know. I ran a workshop for a large company on how to organize information on a new sub-portal in a global intranet. The company had decided to converge all HR information into a single portal, and close the many dozens of local and specific HR portals on their intranet. At a decision-making point in the workshop, we organized an e-meeting with telephone and screen-sharing to get feedback from HP people around the world. We presented slides to the full group, then broke into small groups around portable conference phones and conducted 3 to 4 feedback sessions simultaneously. Step by step we worked through the IA proposal. We then came back together for the conclusions. Logical is not logical to everyone Here here is a selection of comments I heard as I moved around the room listening to people work: On sequencing the blocks of information: "This is logical; I like the progression from general to specific. The user can easily find the relevant information." "This won't work because the content our people need in our country is not visible immediately on the home page. This is not user-centric." On providing strategic background material: "This will help people understand why.... Then they will follow the procedure better." "People are under too much time pressure these days. All they want to know is what has changed, how it impacts them, and how much time they have to do whatever they have to do." On the workshop itself: "We don't need to go into so much detail. If people are really motivated, they'll find what they need." "This is great. At last we will have a well-organized set of information." There is NO perfect architecture! The group worked through the IA proposal with comments like this bouncing around the room non-stop for half a day. When we stopped, we had an agreement on what IA structure to implement in the prototype for user testing in the different countries. Hard work? Yes. Did we reach full agreements? No. when the user testing results come back, will there be a clearcut answer? Probably not. But there will be extensive material and reasons for making choices. The final choices can be explained, and those who disagree will understand the decisions.   (March 2004)

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