Usability and information architecture of the University of Auckland staff intranet

A talk I gave to the educational conference Educause about the redevelopment of the University of Auckland's staff intranet.

1. UOA Staff Intranet Justine Sanderson justine@userfaction.com 6 April 2005
2. Provide a useful, usable, scalable central staff resource
3. Overview Initial Analysis User Centred Approach Outcomes
4. UofA Central st aff Public website Intranet One site or two?
5. Who is the audience?
6. T& L + Research
7. Teaching & Learning
8. Faculty websites
9. Faculty website/intranet vs university intranet?
10. Departmental websites
11. UOA Staff Section
12. web manager faculty web managers content editors individual units & depts web development team Distributed team
13. Overview Initial Analysis User Centred Approach Outcomes
14. User-Centred Design Approach •  Stakeholder Interviews •  User Interviews •  Card Sorting Workshops •  Initial Information Architecture •  IA Validation
15. User Interviews (37)
16. User Profiles
17. Card-Sorting Workshops (10/39)
18. Wall of Stickies
19. Don`t ask users •  Questioning users about their intranet needs is generally ineffective •  Most will tell you what they think you want to hear •  Even if they want to help, they are unable to self-analyse their activities •  Key activities will be missed, and minor needs inflated •  Results of questioning rarely match test results, usage logs, etc
20. Positive side-effects of card-sorting
21. Emerging IA
22. IA Validation
23. IA Validation - Tasks
24. IA Validation – Paper Prototype
25. IA Validation – User Tests
26. Overview Initial Analysis User Centred Approach Outcomes
27. Proposed IA
28. Proposed IA - Alternative
29. Proposed IA – Level 2
30. Mockups
31. The IA reflects the university`s main bpillars` teaching :: research :: administration 40 40 20
32. The IA is scalable Is it a teaching resource? content providers Is it an administrative resource? Is it a research resource?
33. Next Steps… Design iteratively: design, test, revise, test
34. Future?
35. Exciting times ahead…! justine@userfaction.com Questions?