Seth Earley, CEO & President, Earley &...

Earley & Associates, Inc. | Classification: CONFIDENTIAL USE, NO REPRINTS Copyright © 2012 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SharePoint Information Architecture: Translating the Abstract into the Actionable

UIE Virtual Seminar August 9th, 2012

2 Copyright © 2012 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

• Co-author of Practical Knowledge Management from IBM Press

• Editor of IEEE Information Professional Magazine

• 18 years experience building content and knowledge

management systems, 20+ years experience in technology

• Former Co-Chair, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Science and Technology Council Metadata Project Committee

• Founder of the Boston Knowledge Management Forum

• Former adjunct professor at Northeastern University

• Guest speaker for US Strategic Command briefing on knowledge networks

• Currently working with enterprises to develop knowledge and digital asset

management systems, taxonomy and metadata governance strategies

• Founder of Taxonomy Community of Practice – host monthly conference calls of

case studies on taxonomy derivation and application.

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP 100+ calls since 2005

• Co-founder Search Community of Practice:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SearchCoP

Seth Earley, CEO & President, Earley & Associates


White Paper from Earley & Associates

http://www.earley.com/knowledge/whitepapers/business-value-taxonomy


• Apply UX processes and tools to SharePoint elements

• Approach content types with confidence

• Translate SharePoint concepts to traditional UX

• Address pain points in a rigorous design process

Virtual Seminar Objectives


Information Architecture Design Methodology

Content Types & Site Column

Design

Term Store & Taxonomy Development

Site Maps & Wireframe

Design

Use Cases, Workflow & Authoring

Solution Design

Documents DES

IGN

&

DEV

ELO

P

Taxonomy User Interface

Tagging Processes

Auto Categorization

Test Plan & Execution

TEST

&

VALI

DAT

E

Governance Strategy

& Guidelines

Socialization Communication

& Adoption

Migration Strategy

& Approach

Metrics Development

Governance / Maintenance Processes

MAI

NTA

IN

& EN

HAN

CE

Current State Assessment

Future State Vision

Gap Analysis

Heuristic Evaluation

Strategy, Roadmap &

Recommendations ST

RAT

EGY

& VI

SIO

NN

Content Analysis

Audience Analysis

Requirements Definition

Requirements & Analysis Findings

RE

SEAR

CH

&

DIS

CO

VER

Task Analysis


The IA Design Process

• This is a conceptual representation of the IA approach roughly broken into five work streams: Strategy and Vision Research and Discovery Design and Development Testing and Validation Maintenance and Enhancement

• These are not necessarily discrete sets of activities, there is overlap

• Each document icon (last column) represents a deliverable which summarizes activities

in that work stream. These may be combined into a single document.

• Chevrons represent tasks and activities. Not all need to be addressed or they may be addressed as parts of other tasks.

• Steps are not necessarily sequential. For example, Governance and Socialization happen at all levels

• Some deliverables are required as inputs for other processes. For example, Use Cases and User Scenarios are required for testing


Requirements to Design

Challenge lies in going from here…

to here…

Strategy is not unique to SharePoint Testing is fairly typical: based on use cases and scenarios SharePoint Governance is part content curation, part IT governance One critical factor is making the correct decision about design elements

“We’re not developing a taxonomy...”

“We’re using agile…”

Huh?


Design Traps In SharePoint Projects

The biggest design challenge is the temptation to not

engage in a rigorous process


13

SharePoint’s ease of development and

“deployment” lulls managers and IT organizations into

complacency


14

There are numerous ways to accomplish a goal or create

particular functionality – iterative validation is essential to the

process


15

Approach is iterative (agile) with one key difference:

Sufficient time needs to be

spent to develop core reference architectures.


Translating Concepts into Design Elements

• Challenge lies in going from an abstraction to something concrete.

• Many organizations are trying to “make the information easier to use” which is a broad ambiguous abstraction

• Need to answer: What information? For whom? Accomplishing what task? With what information?

• Many information management projects fail because they are too broad, scope is ambiguous, and outcome is not measurable.

• SharePoint IA needs to start with a focus on problems and processes

• May be broadened from this starting point, but cannot solve ambiguous problems


Problems => Solutions

• Problems are identified through interviews, surveys, working sessions

• In each forum, we are making observations about the current state: how people accomplish tasks, bottlenecks in processes, problems with information access and findability, challenges around inaccurate and incomplete information

• Need to translate observations about the information environment into a vision of how those issues can be resolved.

• User centric IA requires that we understand the mental model of the user: the tasks they need to execute and how they go about accomplishing their work

• Steps to the process: Observe and gather data points Summarize into themes Translate themes into conceptual solutions Develop scenarios that comprise solutions Identify audiences who are impacted by scenarios Articulate tasks that audiences execute in scenarios Build detailed use cases around tasks and audiences Identify content needed by audiences in specific use cases Develop organizing principles for content


From Problems to Solution – Steps to the Process

Process Step Answer the following Example

Observe and gather data (pain) points

What are the specific problems and challenges that users are identifying?

• We can’t locate information about policies for specialty coverage • We need to look in multiple systems to find prior experience data

when underwriting new policies in high risk areas • Different terminology is used in different systems making queries

difficult

Summarize into themes What are the common elements to observations, how can symptoms and pains be classified according to overarching themes?

Inability to locate policy and underwriting information using common terminology

Translate themes into conceptual solutions

Wouldn’t it be great if we could…?

We could access all policy and prior experience data across multiple systems using a single search query and return consistent results?

Develop scenarios that comprise solutions

What would a day in the life of a user look like if this solution were in place?

At a high level, describe how underwriters go about their work in writing policies for specialty and high risk clients. Describe each potential situation and how they would go about their work

Identify audiences who are impacted by scenarios

Who are the users that are impacted?

Risk managers, underwriters, sales personnel

Articulate tasks that audiences execute in scenarios

What are the tasks that need to be executed in each scenario?

For a given scenario, articulate tasks (research options, review loss history, locate supporting research, etc.)

Build detailed use cases around tasks and audiences

What are the specific steps to accomplish tasks?

For a single task, list the steps to execute (this level of detail is not needed in all cases). Step 1 – log on to claim system Step 2 – search for history on the coverage type in geography, Step 3 – etc.

Identify content needed by audiences in specific use cases

What content and information is needed at each step in the process?

Claims data, policy information, underwriting standards, actuarial tables, fraud reports, etc.

Develop organizing principles for content

Arrange the things they need according to process, task or other organizing principle

Begin with “is-ness”. What is the nature of the information? Then determine “about-ness”, the additional characteristics of the information. How would you tell 100 documents of that type apart?


• “Arrange the things that people need according to process, task, or other organizing principle”

“Develop Organizing Principles for Content”


ACME Site Map

What exactly do these represent? Is “Sales” a site collection? A site? A library? A list? A content type? A metadata field? A value?


• Taxonomy is the foundation for information architecture

• Every design element in SharePoint requires a consistent set of organizing principles

• If we start with the core organizing principles first, the IA is a matter of structuring these into the constraints and constructs of SharePoint elements

Site collection hierarchy - How multiple sites relate to one another, global navigation across sites

Site navigation – Organizational construct within a site, how document libraries are named and organized

Document library organization – How libraries sort, organize and view documents

Content model construction - Metadata fields (columns) that comprise content types

List definition – Values that drive fields (columns) that use controlled vocabularies

Faceted search – Metadata fields that are exposed to users to perform attribute based search. Facets depend on user context and content model

Roles for security and personalization – Types of users that have specific privileges or who may be interested in specific subjects

Relationship of Taxonomy to Information Architecture


Structural Disambiguation of a Concept - “Sales”

Organizing principle Icon Element Disambiguating principle

Site collection Sales

You could have a collection of sites called “sales”. Within them you would have to further distinguish sales sites. What is the difference between one sales site and another?

Site North American Sales

One possible way to consider this would be to distinguish between regions in different sites

Library Brand A Sales If we distinguished between regions at the site level, we might consider different libraries for various products

List Products for Sale The actual product names would comprise a sales related list

Column Product types for Sale

A column is a metadata value. A field called sales does not have much meaning. This may be a kind of sales

Content Type Product Description A content type is a collection of fields. What is the conceptual unit around sales? Product page or description.

Term Product Name The controlled vocabulary term would be the actual name of the product in a list

Document Set Sales contracts and agreements

A collection contains things that comprise a transaction or natural grouping (process or task based).


Design Element Purpose When to organize at this level Example

Site collection Organize multiple repositories Name collections according to major theme or

over riding concept, such as business division or department

Human Resources Sales Marketing

Site

Repository that concerns a process, business unit or collection of information around a business activity

Name sites according to activity, process or business function

North American Sales Benefits Compensation

Library

Consolidation of content types that are conceptually related

Consider libraries according to a theme, process or concept. For example business development/opportunities, client project

Marketing materials Contracts & Agreements Sales Collateral

List Consolidation of related data in row and column format

List of values can be named according to field name/ column or other concept

Cities, Tasks, Project Contacts, Events

Column

Metadata field that describes an attribute of a piece of content

Columns are named in accordance with standards like Dublin core as well as organization specific attributes. May be a list of values.

City, Location, Industry, Solution, Date Created, Date Modified, Owner

Content Type

Collection of metadata attributes that form the “is-ness” and “about-ness” of a piece of content. Includes rules, workflow, content lifecycles

Content types are fundamental pieces of content that can be collected and organized according to various characteristics. Answer “what is this thing?”

Proposal, Project Plan, Invoice, Medical Record, Presentation, Article

Document Set

A special content type used to manage a collection of related documents

Multiple artifacts are collected and used to generate a single output. Also used to manage processes such as the creation of documentation

Marketing Event Sales Opportunity

Organizing Principles


• Home or Landing Pages – A page is the substrate on which design elements are organized

• Web Parts - modular bits of functionality that allow modification of content, appearance and behavior of web pages. Consider web parts as windows or views into content and data contained in lists, libraries and other data sources

• Managed Metadata Service – A collection of defined, centrally managed terms that are applied by publishers as metadata attributes for content items Term Store – A database that is used to house both Managed Terms and “Enterprise Keywords”.

Groups - From a taxonomy perspective, a group is a flat list or hierarchical collection of related attributes comprised of one or more Term Sets.

Term Set - A flat list or hierarchical collection of related Terms that belong to a Group. Term - A word or phrase that can be applied by publishers and system users as metadata to content.

• Views – Leveraging metadata to create different ways of looking at content stored in a list or library. Created within a list or library.

• Folders – never ever use folders

• Navigational tools – Global and local navigation, attributes for filtering and searching of content

Other Core Architectural Concepts


Marketing Site

Sales Marketing Operations Delivery HR Engineering

Site collection – Separate security, Global navigation Think of a Division, Business Unit

Sales Operations Marketing Delivery HR Engineering

Acme

Site – The container for pages, libraries and lists of things Think of a Department or Functional Area

Acme

Global navigation

Local navigation

Navigate across sites in a collection

Navigate across libraries within a site

Site Collections and Sites


Marketing Site


Case Studies Library Events Case Studies

Global navigation Library – The container for documents organized according to a process or concept Think of a collection of information for a process. For example, a repository of Case Studies that marketing produces

Case Studies Library

Case Study Content Type

Title Author

Date

Client

Industry

Content Type – The container for information. May be a word document, a page, an image, other rich media like an audio or video file. Think of the individual piece of information that you might hand to someone to read or surface on a web site or intranet.

Body of Content

Libraries and Content Types

Local navigation


Column – The metadata that describes a piece of content. Think of a Column in a spreadsheet Terminology Check: Column = Metadata = Field = Attribute = Facet


Title Author

Date

Client

Industry

Body of Content

Automotive Construction Consumer Products Energy Engineering Financial Services Healthcare Insurance Legal Manufacturing Pharmaceuticals Retail Services …

Industry Column

A Content Type is defined by Columns – The metadata that describes a piece of content by “is-ness” and “about-ness”. Ask “What is this thing?” “What is it about?”

A Content Type in SharePoint can also define workflow and information lifecycle and policies.

Columns


A certain type of column, the Managed Metadata Column, Contains a Term Set – The actual values within a metadata field Think of the values that would be chosen by a user in a drop down field

Automotive Construction Consumer Products Energy Engineering Financial Services Healthcare Insurance Legal Manufacturing Pharmaceuticals Retail Services …

Industry Term Set

Term Set

Term Definitions and Usage Guidelines

Term Synonyms

Term

Terms and Term Sets


Case Studies Library

Case Study Content Type Title

Author

Client

Date

Industry

Library Views Leverage Content Models

Type Title Author Client Industry Date

Designing User Experience in SharePoint 2010 Jeff Carr PCL Construction 3/23/2012

Improving Medial Information Online Jeannine Bartlett BMS Pharmaceuticals 6/22/2012

Creating a Global Content Management Strategy Seth Earley Motorola Telecommunications 5/16/2010

Optimizing Search Facets and Navigational Taxonomy Seth Earley JC Penney Retail 5/18/2011

Case Studies Library View


Designing Library Views

Title Author Client Industry Date

Project = Content Management

Designing User Experience in SharePoint 2010 Jeff Carr PCL Construction 3/23/2012

Creating a Global Content Management Strategy Seth Earley Motorola Telecommunications 5/16/2010

Project Type = Search

Improving Medical Information Online Jeannine Bartlett BMS Pharmaceuticals 6/22/2012

Optimizing Search Facets for eCommerce Seth Earley JC Penney Retail 5/18/2011

Case Studies Library View

Marketing Process – Sales needs to locate particular Case Studies and White Papers in order to sell a project

Library Content Type Views Categorization Facets for Search

Case Studies

Case Study Content Type White Paper Content Type

Filtered by status Filtered for Exemplars

Categorized by Industry and by Project Type

Industry Project Type


A Few Words About the Term Store and Taxonomy Management

• The Term Store is mistakenly called a Taxonomy Management Tool. • It is a step in the right direction but lacks many of the features and functions for

taxonomy management. Not intended to be a general purpose taxonomy tool Difficulty importing, exporting and adapting to other environments Tools for building and leveraging enterprise taxonomies including auto-categorization and

search enhancement

• Enterprise taxonomy management requires a centralized place to define and store Preferred terms and their relationships (hierarchical, associative, equivalence) Term definitions and scope notes Governance processes including workflow, change management, security Multilingual translations Custom attributes System integration (via tagging, search and navigation)

• If common vocabularies are required across multiple systems, a dedicated taxonomy management tool will be needed


Structure and terminology to support non text asset location and reuse

Reconcile vendor product metadata with structure and format for catalog, merchandising, order management

Facets and attributes based on taxonomy resolve with search user experience best practices

Semantic relationships for related products, controlled terminology for merchandisers to support specific promotions

SharePoint Lives in an Information Ecosystem

www.BigBox.com

Content and document types, topics/subjects, audiences, etc to support unstructured information


33


Questions


Site collection Content Type

Site Term

Library Document Set

List Folder

Column Page


Events Case Studies

SharePoint Design Constructs and Navigational Considerations

Global Navigation Mechanism for

navigating across sites

Views Mechanism for

leveraging content model in libraries

Local Navigation Mechanism for

navigating within a site

Web Parts Functionality to

surface content and data on a page

Navigational Considerations

Design Constructs


• “Arrange the things that people need according to process, task, or other organizing principle”

“Develop Organizing Principles for Content”


ACME Site Map

What exactly do these represent? Is “Sales” a site collection? A site? A library? A list? A content type? A metadata field? A value?


• Determine what content is important for your use case or user scenario

• Prioritize on that content, subset the content areas that will be the focus of the user experience

Content Prioritization Based on Scenario

Scenario: Fran is a new consultant. She’s recently graduated from University of Washington Information School and this is only her third project with Acme. She’s been assigned to work on a project in the healthcare field around content reuse and component authoring for physician order sets. She needs to get up to speed on similar projects and wants to leverage the Methodology Playbook that Acme has developed for this purpose. She’s been asked by the project manager to assemble a kick off deck and the project management templates as well as interview guides and content audit spreadsheets.


• Determine what content is important for your use case or user scenario • Prioritize on that content, subset the content areas that will be the focus of the user

experience • Design how the content model will be leveraged in libraries, navigation and search

Developing Content Model

Process Step Search or Navigation Parameters

Content Area

Step 1: Review the current project SOW and Cost Sheet

SOW, Cost Sheet, Final version, approved, Project name, Client, Project type

Sales materials, Accepted proposals

Step 2: Search Methodology library for “Component Authoring” and “Healthcare”

Component Authoring, Single Source Content

Delivery Practice Areas

Step 3: Browse the Case Study library for similar projects

Healthcare, Content Architecture, Life Sciences, EHR, EMR

Case Studies

Step 4: Review Templates and Exemplars for starting points for the project.

Template Library, Project Deliverables marked as “exemplar”

Delivery Projects


Prioritized Site Map

Step 1

Step 1 Step 2

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4


Leverage Design and Navigation Constructs


Collateral Library


Process Step Search or Navigation Parameters

Content Area

Step 3: Browse the Case Study library for similar projects

Healthcare, Content Architecture, Life Sciences, EHR, EMR

Case Studies

Focus on Step 3: Browse the Case Study library for similar projects

Acme Site Collection

Marketing Site

Collateral Library


Industry Column

Healthcare Term

Pulling from the Vertical Industry Term Set in the term store


• A Wireframe provides the framework for how content and user interface elements are organized within a site

• Intended to illustrate conceptual layout and therefore lack real content examples and visual design.

• Primarily focus on:

Types of information presented and content priority

Features and functionality

Common elements such as headers, footers, global, utility and secondary navigation

• Developed based on a combination of information modeling and access requirements

• Driven by user scenarios and use cases

• Need to map the needs of users to SharePoint design constructs and elements.

• Intermediate step - rough layout of ideas

Wireframes


Intermediate Wireframe – “Quote”


• How will users interact with the information and concepts that you created the mind map around?

• What questions will they need to ask?

• How will information appear to them?

• How will they navigate from one place to another?

• How will attributes be leveraged?

• How will they navigate from one section to another?

• How will they move back to the main site?

• How will they search?

Wireframe User Interactions


• To provide visual representations of content layout and identification of where elements will be placed within page templates

• Indicate notes regarding functionality such as taxonomy integration

Wireframe Design


• Annotation for how each of the “bits” on each wireframe is intended to function

Wireframe Design


• Identification and mapping of organizational job roles • Active personalization design

Pull of content to users based on personal preference

• Passive personalization design Push of predefined content targeted to users based on audience

Audience Analysis & Personalization

Matrix may include: • Role Mapping • Applicable Systems • Preferred Content Types • Topical Interests • Required Content • Related Roles


• Active personalization design Pull of content to users based on personal preference

Audience Analysis & Personalization

User Selected Preferences


• Three Day Hands On Training in SharePoint Information Architecture • Also offered as an on site custom course

08/28/12 - 08/30/12 Toronto, ON 09/19/12 - 09/21/12 NY Metro Area 11/07/12 - 11/09/12 Dallas, TX

SharePoint IA Training


• Module 1: Getting Started Introductions Framing the Problem What is Information Architecture? Information Architecture Process Introduction to the Course Project (Acme Consulting)

• Module 2: Understanding Content

Content Audits & Inventories Taxonomy & Terms Metadata & Site Columns Content Types

• Module 3: Understanding People & Processes

User Analysis and Use Cases

• Module 4: Site Maps, Navigation & User Experience Site Map Design Wireframes Creating Sub-sites

Agenda


• Module 4: Site Maps, Navigation & User Experience Working with Document Libraries Configuring Views Search

• Module 5: Social Features

The Role of Folksonomy Social Tagging Tracking Content and People through Tags

• Module 6: Testing

Heuristics, Affinity Modeling, Usability Testing Designing User Tests Example Protocol

• Module 7: Governance

Introduction to Governance Operationalizing Governance

Agenda


Contact us!

Seth Earley CEO _____________________________ EARLEY & ASSOCIATES, Inc. Cell: 781-820-8080 Email: [email protected] Web: www.earley.com Follow me on twitter: @sethearley Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sethearley


Supplemental Slides

55

Copyright © 2012 Earley & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Use multiple methods to understand users:

Interviews

Surveys

Working sessions

Observation/shadowing

Search log analysis

Content review

Content/task/audience analysis

Requirements Gathering

56


Use a Structured Interview Guide

57


Structured Surveys Provide Statistical Data

58


Interactive Working Sessions Create Buy In

59


• Summary of data and observations from a variety of sources summarized into key themes

Observation Analysis

60


• Summary of data and observations from a variety of sources summarized into key themes

• Important to have an audit trail for source of observations

Requirements Analysis

61


Analyze Search Logs for User Terms

Source: http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/searchanalytics/blog/log_sample_google_appliance/

62


Content Review

Content can be

audited or inventoried

Answer: what

content is of interest to my audience?

63


Content/Task /Audience Analysis

Audiences need content

to support tasks

Develop a matrix that maps the audience needs

to specific tasks and content that supports

those tasks

This matrix is useful when performing content

reviews and analysis and ensuring that use cases

are supported by appropriate content and

organizing principles

64


Gap Analysis Summarizes Findings

Cont

ent A

rchi

tect

ure

Desired Capability Gap Current State Assessment Preliminary Gap Closing Actions

27. Information is secure and only available to people with authorized access.

Major Gap

People have access to restricted information (electronic and paper), access permissions are not aligned with sensitivity policies.

Ensure that access control lists and permissions align with information sensitivity policies.

28. Trust in the currency and integrity of a record.

Major Gap

No consistent processes, methods and controls for versioning documents, removing duplicate copies, and managing document lifecycle state.

Develop clear and effective version control policies, procedures, and methods, and document lifecycle metadata. Configure and utilize ECM version control and lifecycle mechanisms. Educate employees.

29. Master Data is harmonized across systems Gap

No common language or framework for describing data across various systems to enable aggregating and analyzing data.

Develop a mapping / ontology of data across systems that need to be aggregated for analysis (BI), reporting, dashboards.

30. Documents have the necessary metadata to facilitate access control, retrieval, retention, and destruction.

Gap Inconsistent definition and use of metadata.

Develop a master metadata schema (mapped to content types) that can be used for both physical records and electronic content. Configure and utilize ECM application (DL, SharePoint) mechanisms to populate metadata. Use authoritative sources to populate metadata.

31. We do not recreate content for different media or publications - we create once and reuse.

Major Gap

Video and photos are repurposed on an ad hoc basis. Sites are locally created and managed.

Implement DAM. Implement Web Content Management. Redesign content creation processes to facilitate content reuse. Develop reuse metrics and monitor performance

32. Able to predict and control the growth of electronic and physical storage.

Major Gap

No measurements or metrics in place.

Develop KPMs for physical and electronic storage and archive. Identify key areas of need and develop countermeasures. Target areas of major growth fn physical storage for movement to electronic solutions.

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• Audiences are segmented definitions of users

• Personas are representations of specific users

• Fictitious archetype of a person

• Embodies various characteristic, attitudes and quirks

• Includes lifestyle, education, demographics

• Can have multiple personas for a particular audience (user) type

Audiences and Personas

66


• Personal Profile • It took some doing, but Jonathan Miller

found a workable balance between being the single dad of a 6-year-old and working a full schedule at a venture capital firm. With childcare help from his mother, mother-in-law and a part-time babysitter, Jonathan’s daughter has returned to a semblance of the secure, reassuring existence she had when her mother was alive. With stability at home renewed, Jonathan has been able to focus time on his career.

• Jonathan’s role as a strategic investment analyst at the venture capital firm rose from the ashes of a company that shuttered its doors after the dot-com implosion. He was CFO at the defunct firm and had befriended the VP of the venture firm. Jonathan has dreams of becoming a partner of the firm but given the tough economic climate, that goal seems further off.

• Because Jonathan doesn’t compromise in spending time with his daughter, he often works on projects late into the night after he puts his daughter to bed. He doesn’t hesitate to avail himself of useful Internet tools and websites, but doesn’t have much time or interest for gratuitous surfing.

• Jonathan is talented at distilling risk management, insurance and financial advice into consumable reports for his bosses. He takes full advantage of the resources at his disposal: sophisticated research databases at the office and his extensive network of professional contacts. He will use the Web to the degree that it adds quality to his work product.

Jonathan Miller Domestic Business Customer

“I will take knowledge from whence it comes”

background • 44-year-old, man, widower, 6-year-old daughter, moderate • BS in Electrical Engineering, SMU; MBA Harvard • Works at venture capital firm in Boston; lives in Back Bay • $240K annual income / $2M net worth • Hobbies: Tennis, local politics, chess • Favorite Web sites: CNN, Yahoo! Finance, Hoovers, Edgaronline attributes • Heads-down, methodical, thorough • Highly intelligent, respectful, task-oriented • Confident in his abilities, but humble enough to incorporate others’ expertise site needs • Useful risk management information and tools that will help him analyze and decide • Comfort that ABC not only knows risk, but provides related advisory services; ease in navigating between the two • A comprehensive catalog of services that can be uncovered without excessive navigation • Clear contact information regarding different aspects of risk management

Featured Scenario:

Scenario

Features

Behavior

Jonathan has been asked by his firm’s VP of Business Development to assess the financial soundness of four business plans. The plans have one thing in common – they all involve enhancing or expanding global operations. Jon quickly assesses the revenue and cost profile, but does not have an adequate handle on the risks. He needs to quantify the risks, assess their impact on each plan, and validate their risk mitigation. Six months earlier at an HBS reunion, Jonathan met up with an old grad school buddy who told him about his wife who worked at ABC as an international underwriter. Jon decides to check out AIG’s website to see if it can provide him with information and guidance on international risk and specifics on each country.

• Product and services categorization • Risk assessment tools • Other tools, presentations, etc., to help him help us sell

• After tucking in his daughter, Jon points his browser to abc.com. He navigates (searches?) to “corporate risk” and finds highly relevant risk management information and tools (e.g., spreadsheet templates). • Jon clicks on a catalog of AIG’s risk advisory services, spots an entry titled “Global Risk Analysis,” and reads the short blurb. • Jon, convinced that ABC is capable of helping him, dials the number listed on the site, and schedules a conference call with the advisory group. • Jon makes approval of two of the plans contingent on the companies adding certain insurance coverage to their risk management plans – coverages he learned about on the ABC site.

Alternative Scenarios • A new ABC product is introduced; Jon wants to note which IPOs in his portfolio should consider it • Jon is already a customer • Jon is cross-sold life insurance • Jon wishes to begin researching savings options for his daughter’s college education

Jonathan uses the abc.com website to help him make business decisions through online information and tools

Audience: Business Country: USA Language: English

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• Users can be identified by their characteristics, tendencies, preferences, and aptitudes through the development of user profiles and personas A profile is a description of a user role based on their job tasks and objectives A persona is a description of their personality and details of their lifestyle

• Use cases are specific, step by step interactions with a system

• Scenarios are a “day in the life”, higher level description of the things that they need

to accomplish

Use Cases and User Scenarios

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• Use Cases provide step by step instructions. They describe how each type of user interacts with an application. They are also depicted as diagrams that visualize the steps and paths needed to complete a task...

Workflow and Process

User Cases are used test the ability to locate specific content based on labeling and the hierarchy mental model

Can also be used to test simulated faceted search

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Example User Scenarios

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Example Use Case

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Organizational Strategy

Business Unit Objectives

Increase customer satisfaction

Expand offerings Develop new markets

Business Processes

Customer Support Web Channel Sales

Proposal Management

System

Call Center Knowledge

base E Commerce

System

Processes enable objectives

L I N K

A G E

Customer Acquisition

Content Sources

Grow top line revenue

Content supports processes

Objectives align with strategy

Working here (tools,

technology, IA, taxonomy, search,

etc)

Measuring here (micro level -

effects)

Measuring here (macro level -

outcomes)

User Centric Design is Measurable: Linkage to Outcomes

CEO: “Show me how will this project increase our revenue.”

Seth Earley, CEO & President, Earley &...

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