Hi Elizabeth, Experts, like the people reading ixda discussions are a good source for best practices. However, I think you need to get your users involved in this process, even if you have no budget for it yet. It%u2019s a great way to counter-balance the previous owner%u2019s opinions with the voice of the people.
First identify the broad categories of people using the Intranet: Executives, inside sales, field sales, marketing, managers, product development specialists, etc. Invite a representative of each of these groups to a working lunch where you do a traditional card sort exercise, which will result in a good set of terminology for the links, and a hierarchy of how things should be organized. If you don%u2019t have info about card sorts, please email me and I%u2019ll find some for you to work with. Then create a profile on each of the user types you have identified. With their input, create some realistic scenarios of how these user types will use the Intranet. (For more info how to create user scenarios for employee portals see the related link on the home page of my web site, usography.com.) Step through each of these scenarios and see if the structure you came up with after the card sort makes sense. Make adjustments as necessary, and then socialize this to the stakeholders to get their buy-in. This approach will give you an organic, bottom-up organizational structure and nomenclature system that will be authentic to your organization. Kind regards, /pb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37401 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
