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Column Two
News and opinion on all things KM & CM |
James Robertson
Step Two Designs
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Written by James Robertson Step Two Designs |
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Articles by Month: August 2005
The psychology of searchJohn S. Rhodes has written a series of articles on the psychology of search. To quote: Search is a killer application on the web and in the enterprise. Perhaps it is the killer app. Therefore, by definition and practice, it is a success story. At the same time, however, no one has explained search. That is, no one has explained the fundamental nature of search. Where is the psychology behind search? And quite seriously I ask, What is search? Read the full series: Posted by jamesr at 04:58 PM
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CMS Watch releases 8th Edition of The CMS ReportCMS Watch has just released the 8th Edition of the highly-regarded The CMS Report. To quote: In this version, we add coverage of OpenCms, Plone, CoreMedia, and Synkron, as well as substantially update the analysis of Vignette, Interwoven, Documentum, Stellent, and 23 other CMS vendors. There's no other single place you can find this breadth and depth of comparative coverage of the major players. Read before you try before you buy. By the way, scores of consultants, developers, and end-users around the world contribute on an ongoing basis to this report. To those contributors: once again, many thanks. As I've mentioned before, if you are looking for a realistic and pragmatic assessment of the US market for content management, get this report. The report also contains a lot of excellent background information on how CMS products operate. The Content Management Requirements Toolkit then provides a complementary resource that focuses on developing meaningful business requirements, and selecting a suitable product. Posted by jamesr at 12:19 PM
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Mapping An Information Architecture's ScentMark Game has written an article on information scent, in the context of designing navigation labels on a site. To quote: Like animals who search for food in the wild, Pirolli suggests that humans optimize their information searches by looking for the greatest benefit with the least cost. He goes on to say that humans judge the value of unseen information resources based on guesses about immediately available cues. In this research, cues are represented by the site's menu labels. [Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre.] Posted by jamesr at 11:39 AM
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Getting IA Done, Part IIJoshua Kaufman has written another article on tips and tricks for getting IA done. To quote: Back in June, I presented my best advice in Getting IA Done, Part I. At the end of the article, I asked Digital Web Magazine readers to send me their favorite tips to publish in Part II. I've included most of the submissions in this column. A big thanks goes out to everyone who sent me ideas --- you make this column Information Architecture for the People. Posted by jamesr at 11:13 AM
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Blog problemsApologies to my regular readers. I've been having some technical problems with my blog over the last week or so, which has prevented me from publishing new entries. I've just restored a backup, and have just reposted entries to catch back up to the present. Fingers crossed, all is working now. As a side note, we are working steadily on redesigning the whole Step Two Designs website, and upgrading to the latest version of Movable Type will be part of that. Watch this space... Posted by jamesr at 11:01 AM
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Usability@90mphPaul F. Marty and Michael B. Twidale introduce the concept of Usability@90mph, a high-speed method for demonstrating usability testing. To quote: This article documents the authors' attempt to develop a quick, inexpensive, and reliable method for demonstrating user testing to an audience. The resulting method, Usability@90mph, is simple enough to be conducted at minimal expense, fast enough to be completed in only thirty minutes, comprehensible enough to be presented to audiences numbering in the hundreds, and yet sophisticated enough to produce relevant design recommendations, thereby illustrating for the audience the potential value of user testing in general. In this article, the authors present their user testing demonstration method in detail, analyze results from 44 trials of the method in practice, and discuss lessons learned for demonstrating user testing in front of an audience. Posted by jamesr at 10:55 AM
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Kiwi Intranets mailing listFollowing on from the recent Strategic Intranet Management Conference in Auckland, Dorje McKinnon has taken the great step of setting up a Kiwi Intranets mailing list. I would strongly encourage anyone located in (or near) New Zealand to join this, and start sharing their experiences...Posted by jamesr at 10:51 AM
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The spotlight on knowledge management: joining in the discussion (Sydney, Australia)Details on the upcoming NSW KM Forum meeting:
Posted by jamesr at 10:45 AM
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Persona non grataDan Saffer has written an article on some issues with personas. To quote: The main cause of this mess is that half of the personas out there are entirely made up, with no user research to back them. In most cases, no one on the design team has talked directly to users to find out who they are, so designers come up with an idea of a user type. The resulting personas are like the designer's imaginary friends. [Thanks to Jeff Veen.] Posted by jamesr at 07:31 PM
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Putting A/B testing in its placeJakob Nielsen has written an article on A/B testing, when it's appropriate and what its limitations are. To quote: Measuring the live impact of design changes on key business metrics is valuable, but often creates a focus on short-term improvements. This near-term view neglects bigger issues that only qualitative studies can find. Posted by jamesr at 06:58 AM
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Asia's content management (CMS) market growthBrice Dunwoodie reports on the latest research into the CMS market in Asia. To quote: The latest research on the Content Management Systems (CMS) software market in Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) indicates that the market, currently valued at US $102.0 million, is expected to grow strongly at a 5-year CAGR of 16.6%, surpassing the US$200 million mark before the end of the decade. This accords with my experience. Australia is keenly implementing CMS products at present, and there are in excess of 100 vendors in the marketplace. While the endnote of the article suggests that a handful of international players are dominating the marketplace, the exact opposite is true in Australia, with the local vendors making the majority of sales. I've been running quite a few CMS workshops in SE Asia recently, including two upcoming events in Singapore and Brunei. There's a lot of interest in web CMS, and few organisations have systems in place. In general, I would say that this market is about 1-2 years behind Australia/UK/US, giving tremendous scope for growth... Posted by jamesr at 11:48 AM
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Usability testing for e-learningShailesh Shilwant & Amy Haggarty have written an article on usability testing for e-learning. To quote: Culturally diverse and geographically far-flung, the new global workforce is leading businesses to search for better, more effective ways to manage growing requirements for employee learning solutions. Clearly, e-learning has become one of the most popular solutions to meet this need. While e-learning enthusiasts extol its lower costs, broader accessibility and personalization potential, e-learning also has experienced slow user adoption and high dropout rates in many organizations. In some cases, users become easily frustrated or unenthusiastic about the material, and if they don't complete the course, the company might not realize a return on its investment. Usability testing can address some of these shortfalls in the learner experience, as well as provide designers with a set of principles and methods that can be used to design courses that will capture and hold users' interest from start to finish. [Thanks to InfoDesign.] Posted by jamesr at 11:23 AM
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The challenge for records management vendorsI recently finished an "information management and records management" review in a small public-sector agency. One of the findings was that while they needed a records management system (RMS), they couldn't proceed with the system they had due to its major usability problems. This accords my experiences in other organisations: notably that there has been a 100% failure rate of rolling out records management systems (with some exceptions, such as legal firms). In my earlier article, I identified three critical success factors: the system, classification scheme and message. Focusing on the system: records management systems are perfectly designed for their original users, specialist records managers. They are complex, powerful and efficient when used all day, every day. The world, however, has changed. We now expect general staff throughout an organisation to be filing records, and they are frankly terrified by records management systems (and rightly so). I would argue that recordkeeping cannot succeed until the usability problems of RMS products are address. So the challenge for RMS vendors: if they want to survive into the long-term, then recordkeeping projects need to succeed. While "compliance" is driving deployment at present, the fact that 100% of projects fail to gain adoption is going to impact upon the survival of the marketplace as a whole. If I was a RMS vendor, I would be spending a lot of effort transforming my product to match the changing nature of RM usage within organisations. This would include:
The RM products haven't changed much for a long time now, but the world has. Now is the time for the RM vendors to kick-start a new round of design and innovation, otherwise the marketplace could easily slide back into oblivion when the current "compliance" hype subsides... At the end of the day, vendors have to take some responsibility for the success (or failure) of organisations implementing RMS solutions. If projects keep failing (as they currently are), vendors should expect to eventually pay the price. Posted by jamesr at 11:15 AM
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Improving Intranet Search (Sydney, August 31)Just a quick reminder that it's only about 3 weeks until the free afternoon session on Improving Intranet Search, being held in Sydney on 31 August 2005. We've had over 65 registrations so far, and expect to meet (or exceed) 100 participants on the day. If so, that would make it one of the biggest gatherings of intranet folk in Sydney this year, and therefore a not-to-be-missed networking opportunity. While it's completely free, we do need people to register before the event so we can ensure sufficient catering. Posted by jamesr at 03:21 PM
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Balancing fidelity in prototypingHenrik Olsen has written an article on balancing fidelity in prototyping. To quote: Deceived by their ideas of what clients will accept, many web development teams build prototypes that are too costly and doesn't serve the purpose prototypes are supposed to. To exploit the full potential of prototyping, it's critical to choose the appropriate level of fidelity. Posted by jamesr at 03:13 PM
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Knowledge Sharing ToolkitDavid Bartholomew has released a Knowledge Sharing Toolkit, which includes a 49 page how-to manual and a number of case studies. To quote: The 'Knowledge Sharing Toolkit' is the result of a two-year DTI-funded project carried out by innovation consultancy David Bartholomew Associates (DBA) and nine of the UK’s leading architectural and engineering practices - Aedas, Arup, Broadway Malyan, Buro Happold, Edward Cullinan Architects, Feilden Clegg Bradley, Penoyre & Prasad, Whitby Bird and WSP. [Thanks to Shawn Callahan.] Posted by jamesr at 03:06 PM
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Two weeks with Martin WhiteI've had the pleasure of spending much of the last two weeks with Martin White of Intranet Focus. We organised to get Martin out from the UK, to keynote the Open Publish conference, and to run a series of CMS workshops for us across Australia. I sat in on all of Martin's first workshop, and participated in a joint Q&A at the end of each event. What has been very interesting (and quite reassuring) is how similar our advice is regarding intranets and content management systems. Despite coming from very different backgrounds (Martin has an information science background, while I originally hail from the IT world), we have both learnt many of the same lessons. I don't think that this is because we have the same perspective on the world; but rather that being exposed to enough CMS projects forces you to learn some of the fundamental truths about what works and what doesn't. We've obviously spent quite a bit of time chatting about various topics, and this has been good for us both. With our enthusiasm renewed, I think we'll both get stuck into our projects with greater energy and clarity. There continues to be only a handful of people in the world who devote their time exclusively to intranets, and I think this has reinforced the idea that Martin and I should be working closer together in the future. So Martin: thanks for heading over from the UK, it's been fun. Thanks also to all those who attended our CMS workshops, your participation made every event enjoyable and interesting. Posted by jamesr at 04:10 PM
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Persona sketchingD. Keith Robinson has written an article on creating personas, for use in web design work. To quote: User goals are important to the success of any Web endeavor, large or small, and it’s too often that the users of a Web site get left out of the process. Buy using a simple technique I call “persona sketching” you can get to know the needs of your users while at the same time easily test your site against user goals. Posted by jamesr at 10:58 AM
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Making use of user researchGretchen Anderson has written an article that explores the role of ethnographic research, as part of user research. To quote: Ethnographic research techniques, on the other hand, focus on the observation of users in a real-world setting. Watching software users try to achieve real goals can be time intensive, but yields valuable qualitative information about the usefulness of a product. The data gained using ethnographic techniques helps in developing solutions to the problem areas diagnosed by usability. Posted by jamesr at 06:59 PM
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Recent trends in enterprise searchStephen Arnold has written an article on the recent trends in enterprise search. To quote: Search within an enterprise is a different problem, and often does not work as well as employees want. Enterprise search follows a different path that leads into a swamp of business language, security, changes to data, and computer systems. In fact, enterprise search is a misnomer because no organization with sane management wants all of its information searchable. Posted by jamesr at 03:43 PM
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Is your intranet trusted by staff?The second CM Briefing for August asks the question: is your intranet trusted by staff? To quote: It is widely recognised that an intranet must be trusted, if it is to be regularly used by staff across an organisation. While it is easy to make this statement, it is harder to qualify what is meant by trust, how users assess it, and how we can build (or rebuild) trust in the intranet. Posted by jamesr at 04:34 PM
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More users = simpler CMSThe first of my CM Briefings for August suggests that more users demands a simpler CMS. To quote: An assumption is made that a "big" CMS will be needed to meet the "enterprise" needs. In practice, a better rule is that the more users that will be accessing the CMS, the simpler (and more usable) the system should be. Posted by jamesr at 04:23 PM
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Information scent: helping people find the content they wantThis month's KM Column article is written by Iain Barker, and it covers the topic of information scent. To quote: How can organisations make it easier for users to step through a site and find the information they are looking for? Posted by jamesr at 03:58 PM
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User experience strategyLuke Wroblewski has written an blog entry on user experience strategy. To quote: Much of today's business strategy remains highly analytical. When considering product investments, most companies attempt to derive the attainable market size, the revenue curve, the factors for success, and so on. Every so often a lone voice in the room will ask "but what does the consumer want?" The standard answer given is "the best experience possible, of course" and the conversation again turns to analysis. Posted by jamesr at 09:58 AM
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Key benefits of a single intranet or public websiteGerry McGovern has written an article on the benefits of having a single intranet or website. To quote: Someone once said that "you get the intranet you deserve." Certainly, the intranet says a lot about the organization. Many organizations have multiple intranets with little or no consistency of design or links between these disparate websites. This says that the organization is not a very cohesive entity, that it is in fact a loose collection of disparate entities. Posted by jamesr at 10:45 AM
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