Fundamental needs: people by function and information by subject
July 17, 2008I’m working on a project where I need to talk to people around the world to understand how they use the intranet.
I just got off the phone with an intranet user in a country far from headquarters. He has 2 fundamental needs that I have often heard expressed but never so simply:
“I need to find people by function and information by subject. That’s all I need.”
When you look at corporate intranets and employee directories, not many of them make this easy.
How often do you need to know a person’s name or where they are in the organisation before you can look up their contact information?
How likely is it that the navigational structure and/or the search engine results reassure users that they have found all the relevant information on a given topic?
July 20th, 2008 at 9:52 am
And why not also people by subject ie people’s function does rarely describe all people’s competences ?
Sometimes you need to find who’s in charge of something…and sometimes who can help for something. That’s not the same purpose, that needs different informations but both are relevant.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Good point Bertrand. I agree completely.
I came across this in another series of phone interviews I did for a pharma company where peoples titles varied so much from country to country that the function alone was not sufficient to know what the person does!
Thanks for the addition.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Adding onto your comments Jane, not only do peoples titles vary from country to country, but the way that they search for the information and the way that information is organized also varies a great deal. What works in the US doesn’t always work in Japan or Sweden. And if you have a consistantly bad experience with the search results/ navigation structure not giving you what you are looking for, it leads to lack of use.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Nice to hear from you Laura. I remember you from our previous contacts in a different context.
I agree completely, have often seen that happen. I once did a workshop where the purpose was to define a new navigation for a single, global HR portal (the company had dozens of HR sites previously). The Americans were saying “Give us the link. Tell us what to do, then let us click to find out why if we’re interested.” The Scandinavians were saying “First present the policy, then explain what we have to do and why, then give us the link to do it.”
How do you explain that?
I don’t know here you are these days, Laura, but if you’re in an organisation interested in participating in the 2008 Global Intranet Survey, get in touch by direct email and I’ll set you up with a link.
Thanks for your comments.