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Book
Review: On-the-Job Research: How Usable Are Corporate Research Intranets?
by John S.
Rhodes
Quick Review
ISBN:
0-87111-550-6
110 Pages
Published: April 2002
Official
web site.
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Overview
(1=horrible,
10=outstanding)
Readability 8
Originality 10
Organization 8
Accuracy 9
Consistency 9
Depth 5
Timeliness 6
Editing 8
Design 8
Overall Value 8
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Table of Contents:
Introduction
Executive Summary
Research Methodology
Frequent Research Topics
Content Organization and Evaluation
Usability Findings and Recommendations
Acknowledgements
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
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Introduction
As the title
indicates, this report is about the usability of research intranets.
According to Alison J. Head and Shannon Staley of Alison J. Head &
Associates, a research intranet can be defined in the following way:
-
It is an
internal, secure web-based site
-
It is a
company-wide resource available to all employees
-
It is a
content-based site for accessing and sharing information
-
It is an
online collection featuring:
- Internal, company produced information and research
- Links to external research tools on the web
- Links to external reports and news items on the web
- A site that can feature online library services
This is a topic
that has not been given enough attention and I am pleased that this report
was written. In fact, I do not know of any other book or report that covers
this exact topic. There are usability articles about intranets (e.g.,
Improving the Usability
of A Corporate Intranet and Apply
Usability Methodologies in Intranet Information Architecture in a Real World
Context), but they don't focus on this particular type of intranet. To
be quite honest, before this report I never considered categorizing and
sub-categorizing intranets.
The authors did usability
work with seven organizations (e.g., Bechtel Corporation, Gale Group, Sun
Microsystems, Chevron. etc.) and explored these four main questions:
-
What are 10 of
the most frequent information needs that employees have in the
workplace?
-
How well do
research intranets meet those frequent research needs?
-
How usable are
research intranets at meeting frequent information needs?
-
How can the
usability of research intranets be improved and optimized?
Some of the Results
The beginning of
the report offers a good summary of their usability research. As you
might expect, some of the results were obvious but some of the results were
not obvious. One obvious finding, in my opinion, is that more people failed
on the testing tasks than those that succeeded. As the authors state,
research intranets are too hard to use. In my experience, this is all too
true.
One of the
non-obvious results is that finding contact information is difficult and
time-consuming. This is explained by the fact that if you don't already have
the name of the person you need to contact, you will have to jump through
many hoops to get the results. Furthermore, much of the information needed
to make a decision is often buried in several places in many file formats.
The bottom line is that using research intranets just to find a person in
some role (e.g., Director of Human Resources) is a major pain. That's an
interesting finding because it shows just how bad companies are at
standardizing their information and processes.
Here are some
other interesting findings:
-
Most employees
only use a research intranet for a couple of tasks, while ignoring
everything else.
-
Few employees
use research intranets to get maps.
-
Vertical
navigation systems are superior to horizontal navigation bars.
-
Even when a
research intranet is hard to use, employees will say the site is easy to
use.
As noted earlier,
one of the key questions in the report is related to figuring out how to
build more usable research intranet web sites. I think the authors
discovered the key concept: The intranet needs to be organized around the
needs of the employees. Give them what they need and they will succeed.
Label things using their language and they will succeed. It is their
web site.
Summary
This is a solid
usability research report. The summary is good, the methodology seems sound,
and the results are concrete. It is also easy to read. Some of the results
are obvious but some are not. The research is not exactly new or completely
innovative. Sure, that's bad because it means that a lot of the advice will
sound familiar to usability professionals and others in the usability arena.
But, it is good too because it means that the research is not outrageous or
poorly done. As I indicated, there are enough new results to please readers
so it is definitely worth having.
The report is not
long; it is just over 100 pages. It really does feel like a report versus a
book. If it falls on a dog or cat, it will not kill it like some technical
books have done.
If you are pressed
for time and this is a topic that you care about, then the report is worth
having. Unfortunately, the report costs over $100. That will keep away folks
on a budget. It might also scare away small and medium companies.
Comments?
Please send them to me: john@webword.com
I want to know what you think about this report.
What next?
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