On 31st of March 2010, Starhub TV, the second largest mobile operator and the sole cable television operator in Singapore had big news for its viewers. They announced that they are going to change the linear, numeric listing of channels that's been etched into our memories for over 8 years, and introduce genres.
This article explores the implications of such a transition for viewers. It also explores a radical way of surfing TV channels!
A collection is a list of homogeneous items. A collection on the web can be as simple as a blog (a list of posts) to as complex as a library collection (multiple lists of different library materials). Collections are an integral part of many websites, but not all collections are designed with ease-of-use and ease-of-retrieval in mind. In this article, I'll cover some theory and give practical advice on designing online collections for the websites and intranets.
Many organisations are waking up to the fact that collaboration is a key piece of the intranet puzzle. I have spoken to many such people in charge of collaboration in their organisations and what puzzles me in turn is their lack of understanding of the culture of collaboration. Let me explain.
This article offers a system view of intranet governance. It is based on a simple strategy that can be applied across different areas. The areas that I've covered are: information organization, publishing, collaboration and applications.
A good site structure makes users happy. They can easily find, understand and use the information on your site. For the business, this makes all the difference. In this article I’ll go through principles behind good site structures and describe a methodology for creating site structures.
The ability to form groups and collaborate on the intranet is key to making the intranet a place for ‘doing work’. A well-planned collaboration setup allows staff to use the setup easily and effectively.
Here are 7 heuristics that can help review existing collaboration setups in organizations.
You’ve spent months researching and redesigning your intranet or website. The wireframes and the sitemaps have done their job in communicating the benefits of the new design to the stakeholders and you’ve got good feedback from the users. The new templates are done up and the CMS is getting tuned. It’s time to think about those 2000 or so pages of content that need to go into the new website. Yes, this is the content migration phase that’s been getting a lot of attention lately.
The newsroom section in corporate and government websites is not just about press releases anymore and nor is it just for the press. The demand by a broad spectrum of customers to be updated on what’s happening at every front of the organization combined with the organization's need to promote and educate customers about new directions has expanded the role of the newsroom. In this article, we take a look at what goes into this enhanced newsroom and how to design for it.
Many organizations are experimenting with wiki-based collaboration projects. But only a small percentage of these projects make it past the initial excitement or pilot phase. One of the reasons for the drop-off is that there’s not enough thought given to them other than deciding which wiki product to install. This article presents a framework that can help groups wanting to use wikis for internal projects better plan and sustain their collaboration efforts.
Getting an intranet is just a start, keeping it going is what matters most. Long term benefits and efficiencies can only be realised when the intranet is responsive to the needs and requirements of business and staff. This guide gives pointers to creating a governance structure that can help sustain and manage the intranet for the long term.
In-page navigation techniques are used to layout web content on a page. When used properly they improve the user experience. But when misused they just add to the anxiety. This article chalks out the different in-page navigation options available to us and offers some tips on using them effectively.
So you’ve got a redesign project. Congrats. Where are you going to start? The goals mentioned in the request-for-proposal or tender aren’t going to get you far. You might plan for kick-off sessions with key stakeholders, but again, you just get a clearer picture of the forest. Then you go and do a content inventory and that gives you a good look at the trees. You also get to see raging forest fires, unauthorised logging, and a few aliens. You feel shattered. Actually professionally empowered. So, again, where do you start? A plan? But you first need a strategy to contain the plan. This article is about one such strategy.
Many university websites are in redesign mode. And that’s good news for the web standards and user experience communities. It signifies not only that the community initiatives are bearing fruit, but also that we can now expect to see a much faster and wider adoption of these initiatives, especially in the public sector. This article lists some important areas of focus of these redesigns.
Supplemental navigation techniques provide an alternative, complementary or adjunct view to seeking out information on large websites and intranets. This article describes when and how to use one such technique – the ‘guide’.
When it comes to the design of intranets and large websites, the limelight is firmly on issues of taxonomy and navigation (info-seeking) and not so much on the final use (info-using) of the content, known as the target content. The focus is still on the library card catalogue and not on the book. In a book world, this is a non-issue; the book is a well-defined, structured entity. But in a web world, we have to deal with open-ended, heterogeneous content, which if not designed for use can be as detrimental to the user experience as weak info-seeking structures. This article describes a simple approach that can help improve the use of target content.
Wikis are increasingly being used on the intranet to help in collaboration around shared work. However, many case studies only briefly cover the actual work practices that successfully accommodate wikis; the focus is still on the overall reactions of the managers and staff on their use. In this article, I will describe how wikis are used in the Singapore branch of the British Council and highlight the characteristics of the work practices that accommodate them.
This article describes how to create and maintain a web style guide to better manage your organization’s web presence.
This article describes a simple visual approach to competive analysis that can be used to quickly gain insights into what’s being used and what’s interesting at your competitor websites.