#IntranetFail - Reason 8 - User Experience

***I'm counting down the 10 reasons why your intranet is hurting, not helping your team members work more efficiently***

Last time I covered the lack of marketing the intranet's capabilities - See here

Reason 8 - User Experience

So, you've led the charge to get rid of all the file duplication out there. Next, you've created a resource and now people are visiting the intranet to use it. However, when they get there, things go south. It's not intuitive. It doesn't flow. It wasn't easy to get to in the first place and now it's difficult to use. So the user thinks, "Where do I start? Why is this taking so long? C'mon now...I have other things I need to do right now. Forget it, I'll do it later".

Is that the experience you want an employee to go through? I doubt it.

You want to make the user experience as pleasant and painless as possible. Here's how:

Action Steps (for intranet managers)

1 - School yourself in User Experience. Take classes, read books, get involved in forums, read blogs...consume all the resources you can think of that will help you learn more about user experience. Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" would be a great first step.

2 - Focus on and upgrade the home page. Apply what you've learned about user experience to the home page. This page will get the most visits and allow you to do the most testing/tracking.

***Stay tuned for reason number 7 soon (we'll go into detail about the Home Page)***

Therman

Always remember, don't try to be perfect, instead just be effective.