January 13, 2004

Intranet Usability

Donna Maurer has a nice article discussing five ways to improve intranet usability. To quote:

Marketing and promotion activities are wasted however, if staff return to the intranet and find that it doesn't help them to do what they need. Before telling staff why the intranet is useful for them, make sure that it is both useful and usable.

The issues covered include:

  • Stakeholder interviews
  • Walking through scenarios
  • Reviewing existing data
  • Performing a usability evaluation
  • Using expert reviews (heuristics)

Of course, the methods she discusses would be useful in non-intranet situations as well...