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Features
Web site designers and information architects take special care to design good navigational structures with hierarchies and site maps to aid users in navigating sites or intranets. However, because intranet users are repeat visitors, they are likely to be less interested in navigation and more interested in searching. The difference? Navigating means getting to know one’s way around a site, becoming familiar with the content in general, and knowing approximately where to find what. Searching involves trying to go directly to some specific piece of information. Once intranet users have garnered a basic lay of the land, they are much more likely to be searching for specific information than to be navigating about casually. Thus, a good search tool is essential for an intranet’s usefulness.
Since the early 1990s, many large corporations have used homegrown intranets, often built by IT departments, to serve as central online information hubs. While these enterprise hubs effectively function as knowledge management bases, additional ad hoc intranet functionality is becoming a strategic initiative now. However, in large part, the corporate hub approach does not suit the needs of modern project teams or task forces whose members would benefit from some of an intranet's functionality, but for who, in essence, require a virtual shared desktop. The fact is that this sort of focused team dynamic doesn't work well within the context of an organization-wide intranet. Today, the on-demand, hosted intranet model offers a viable alternative by fulfilling the time-sensitive needs of project teams.
Columns
Persona development—the creation of stand-in archetypes to represent the behaviors of key customers—is emerging as one of the most effective methods to prioritize and profile key customer segments. Persona development enables stakeholders to build, communicate, and share a common, evidence-based understanding of customers. This allows teams to design, build, and sustain better information products like Web sites, enewsletters, and search interfaces. Here is an overview of the development methodology that the Persona Alliance (myself, Martin White, and Elizabeth Randolph) have evolved over the past 18 months.
In my first Intranets column of 2005, it seems a good time to step back and reflect on the fundamental nature and purpose of intranets. Or to put it another way: what is your intranet actually for? Having worked with many organizations on intranet development, I am constantly surprised by how few have a satisfactory answer to this question. Yet I have come to realize that an intranet will not succeed in the long term if its purpose isn’t understood clearly.
Read_Me_File
Reviewed this issue: FreePint,Information Auditing: A Guide for Information Managers, and Collaborate to Compete: Driving Profitability in the Knowledge Economy
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