In the world of web site management and development, the term “redesign” may at first seem harmless, but can have far reaching implications as to what will be done to deliver a successful project.  I recently worked with a customer who was interested in redesigning various internal and external web sites for their organization.  It quickly became apparent by observing their discussion that they were asking for something much broader than an exclusively aesthetic redesign.  The word “redesign”...

Looking at web technology it is easy to feel that great business value and user productivity can be gained from creating deep, complex integrations presented through elegant user interfaces.  This could be the truth, but it is often far from it. As I have written many times on Infotechaligned – the only thing that matters is the ultimate business value that an application is delivering. The most value can be gained from even the most mundane technical solution. How does one define a great technical...

A great web page is structured like a good dinner party – not everyone can be the center of attention at the same time.  To maximize effective participation it is best to have small pockets of focus exist throughout the dinner that people can engage with.  In order for those pockets of focus to stand out in the crowd, there needs to be space for people to differentiate themselves.  For this same reason not everything on a web page can scream for attention if the guest is to have a good experience. If...

In the world of corporate web portals user experience tends to take a backseat during a project.  After all – with the requirements gathering, coding, configuration and additional tasks that need to be completed, who can bother setting aside time to deal with something wildly subjective like user experience?  What intranet team has a dedicated user experience person on staff?  Besides – we are going to be showcasing all of the difficult integration work and sophisticated development and content...

Anyone familiar with intranets knows the pain of not applying best practices to content maintenance strategies upfront in an initial deployment.  As part of a governance plan (link here) it is essential to design the maintenance strategy early on in a deployment. The pain generally becomes apparent when trying to figure out why old content exists within the intranet or how to restructure content after reorganization.  I have had the luxury of being part of many corporate intranet developments and privy to...

Launching a corporate intranet or new initiative within an existing intranet requires investment in the form of labor and capital. Before allocating time and resource to deliver a project, wouldn’t it be nice to understand if it has an opportunity to contribute positively by adding business value? Fortunately, achieving intranet project success from a business standpoint does not have to be a guessing game. Over a series of various online community and corporate intranet deployments, heuristics have...

Creating a winning recipe for an internally facing corporate portal is a daunting task. At the onset of a project there is a natural tendency to think that having a large target audience is the route to success and value. What has been found through practice though can actually be quite the opposite. Whether we are experienced with portal deployments or not, there are some fundamental dynamics that if carefully orchestrated can help to ensure a deployment’s success. When working with powerful, versatile...