Shapes can brainwash you
I never thought I’d whinge about shapes in my entire life. You know, circles, triangles etc.
Unfortunately shapes represent the nature of most intranets. Companies are always redesigning and going from one layout to the next. Often the concept is the same or similiar. Something they have done before or a critical mistake that another company has made.
So few places base their redesigns on research and latest trends towards:
- user interactivity
- user centred design
- information architecture
- css / js/ xhtml
- assistive technology
- graphics
- browsers
I swear some companies need a ‘wake up’ call.
So I say avoid shapes and go for the line. A straight line. A line that never ends. You start off your web site based on user needs (hence meeting business requirements) and let it grow over time, enhance the usability and accessability. Contsantly review your plans and always focus on the concept. Get that right and you’ll be doing yourself a huge favour.
Unfortunately people are very narrow minded when it comes to concepts:
- Managers will always want pages to be structured based on what they own, look after or report on. (Hence any concept presented as a ‘flow chart’ and backed with statistics will always sell well to ‘executives’ – regardless of how bad the idea is).
Nothing more irritating when people with the wrong background get their hands on controlling an intranet. Examples being:
- marketing people with no background in the web
- project managers with no knowledge of the latest trends
- consultants with no background in the web nor any knowledge of the latest trends
- bosses who think intranets are a ‘once off’ project
If you see no documentation outlining user needs and requirements, yet you see a lot of planning around company operations, you can predict the thought processes are to do the information architecture on ‘organisational structure’ – it may be too late for you to prevent this, if it sneaks up on you (no consultation) but you can always get a job elsewhere…
What you should do:
- write a plan
- define the business goals and objectives
- design around the needs of the user
- consultant with and test users
- research latest trends
- assign the correct resources for the job (refer to above example of the wrong people getting involved)
- plan for the future – new technology that can be utilized etc
Unfortunately not much can be done when there is ‘red tape’ and you literally have no choice or say despite being the specialist. Sounding as if you are right and they are wrong will get you nowhere. However, you can always influence others, particularly by attacking with questions so they work things out themselves. You’ve just got to be smart with how you approach it…
It would appear web specialists advise against doing intranets by organisational structure without first looking at the needs of the user. Refer to poll results.
