Making “User Architecture” Meaningful - Part 2

(May 2005, originally published in IntranetsToday.com March-April 2004)

Read part 1 if you missed it.

So where do you start?

Whatever technology you are using, a good first step is to look carefully at your User Architecture - your home page strategy and your primary navigation categories.

Involve people from the trenches

Step one is to build a cross-company, cross-functional workgroup, and ask them to propose a new UA. They must be mandated by top management or an Intranet Steering Committee and given a minimum 3/4-month timeframe. Include representatives from different countries and business groups, making sure that the majority are not headquarter-based people. Do not leave out any major stakeholder group.

Different tools can be used: audits; online surveys; benchmarking; individual interviews with key users, site managers, content providers and senior management. The mix will depend on how much you already know about usage, user feedback and mid and long-term company strategy.

The workgroup needs to answer three key questions.

Question 1: What categories will be meaningful to everyone?

Everyone must be able to relate to the categories – regardless of job, country, business unit.

They can be defined in different ways: two basic distinctions are (a) to meet the needs of a population of users, for example The Sales and Marketing Page, or (b) by type of content, such as Reference, News, About…. Many primary navigation systems include both types. These categories must be able to live and evolve for several years, and not be dependent on the current organization of the company.

The workgroup must also define at least one or two sub-levels, that is to say make decisions on how the primary categories are broken down. For example, does the News category offer choices in terms of geography, business unit, or corporate and local? Does the Sales and Marketing Page offer sub-sections by type of products, market offers, both, or something else? This work needs to be done in collaboration with the high level owners of these categories.

Last but not least: Where does mandatory stop and local autonomy begin? How deep do you want to standardize the navigational categories?

Question 2: What are the roles and scopes for sub-sites and services?

Existing sites and content must be placed somewhere in the new navigational categories. This often painful task is necessary, whether your approach is “start from scratch” or “progressive migration”. You need to define roles and scopes. A role says “what do you provide and for whom?” A scope statement specifies “what is included and what isn’t”. For example, a country site provides local news for people located in the country, but not product news even if the product teams are located in that country.

These critical definitions will be implemented successfully only if the workgroup conducts in-depth consultation of the people in the trenches, because the decisions will involve major changes in how people manage and use the intranet.

Question 3: What home page model best fits the needs of your company?

Home pages are usually primarily news-driven or navigation-driven. Some combine both but one approach usually dominates. Navigation-driven means the main objective of the page is to offer a comprehensive set of links to the content, services and sites available on the intranet. News-driven means the page is designed to give an overview of news items – global, local, business.

Whichever approach you choose, the trick is to get the balance right. What prominence will local news have? What is considered global? Will you have a corporate home page in the corporate language with local home pages in local languages? Or a mix of languages? Will the navigation links follow or complement the primary navigation categories?

Depending on your technology, you may also define customized home pages for groups of users, and/or let individual users make specific choices.

How you decide is more important than what you decide

This may all seem over-whelming, but the results will be well worth the effort. Keep three golden rules in mind:

Rule #1. Work in a cross-company, cross-functional workgroup to make these decisions. Do not do it only from headquarters.

Rule # 2. Be sure to interview senior management. They will have strategies and priorities that will influence your work.

Rule # 3. When you have a concept you are happy with, get feedback from end-users, making sure you have a good balance from all parts of the company.

This approach to building a User Architecture is time-consuming and requires flexibility and intensive listening to the “voices in the trenches”. The result will be worth it. You’ll have dealt with the thorny issues pro-actively, and when you make your presentation to the steering committee your chances of getting signoff will be very high. The probability of implementing a “future-proof” User Architecture will be even higher.

(May 2005, original version published in IntranetsToday.com March-April 2004)

Making “User Architecture” Meaningful - Part 2

So where do you start?

Involve people from the trenches

Question 1: What categories will be meaningful to everyone?

Question 2: What are the roles and scopes for sub-sites and services?

Question 3: What home page model best fits the needs of your company?

How you decide is more important than what you decide

Breakfasts

Survey

Globally Local

Carnet intranet