By Patricia O'Hern
IntraNet, 3/24/97

As young as they are, many intranets are already in need of an overhaul.

This is typically a byproduct of changing expectations - companies ratcheting up their goals as experience grows - or insufficient planning up front. There are tales aplenty of companies that underestimated the power of the tool, only to have to go back and do it all over again when they recognized the strategic implications.

To gain some insight into the redesign process and the potential benefits, we asked USWeb Utopia, a Web consulting firm, to evaluate the intranet of a willing victim, Acxiom Corp., a large database marketing company headquartered in Conway, Ark.

A good redesign, says Patricia O'Hern, director of intranet consulting at USWeb Utopia, focuses on the logical organization and flow of information, not just prettying individual pages. USWeb Utopia identified five problems with Acxiom's current site and, based on that, suggested a new organizational structure and even dummied up a few new pages.

Evaluation of AcxInet

The network has since undergone four facelifts, with the objective of moving the content up front and restructuring the available information. In its current configuration, the site is content-rich, with more than 5,000 pages, but still underutilized by associates (Acxiom's term for employees).

Associate Chris Tackett, who handled much of the original design and architecture of AcxInet, says he sees the underutilization as a symptom that AcxInet is not meeting its business objectives.

Before I began my evaluation of AcxInet, I discussed those objectives with Roseann Allen, the technical manager responsible for implementing AcxInet. It turns out the intranet has the same goals as the corporation: AcxInet should be a tool to help Acxiom maximize customer satisfaction, enhance associate satisfaction and increase corporate profitability. These are important goals because they reflect an integral part of the corporate culture. AcxInet can be an important tool in ensuring that these business policies are supported.

My review of the site, therefore, looked at two factors: How could we organize the information that was already available on the intranet to make it more accessible to Acxiom's users? What new information or ap-plications could we add to the site to make it more useful in terms of the stated objectives?

Key findings: site analysis

• Graphics
• Navigation
• Information architecture (the distinction between static reference material and changing, timely information)
• Links
• Prioritization of information
• Graphics

While graphics are nice and may increase the usability of information, high-cost, fancy graphics may not return the investment on an intranet. Once you start with a high-glitz image, it's hard to turn back. By taking that approach, you add tremendously to the cost of creating or updating pages. As a result, pages get updated less frequently and their information value decreases. I favor low-tech, plain text unless you are adding value through interactivity.

So, forget the graphics unless they say something. Make your pages easy to update and add to them as often as makes sense. Keep it simple; keep it cheap. Don't lock yourself into a high-cost strategy before you know what the return is. It's always possible to upgrade to glitz once you have quantifiable results.

Navigation

When the AcxInet site was designed, there was no centralized control or funding. Each business unit provided its own funding. The result is a variety of looks and navigation paths. For example, associate phone extensions are in the Associate section and business unit numbers are in the Corporate section. A simple button for all telephone numbers, available from every page, instead of multiple phone lists buried deep within the site, would be a welcome and frequently used alternative.

Redundancy of information also is a problem. The Tools section lists many of the same options found in the Associates section. Yet it is unclear whether the links actually point to the same place.

Information architecture

Static information has the same weight on a page as current, timely information. For example, the front page of the Associate section offers topics such as AcxInet Policy and Making of AcxInet which a visitor might read once. Yet, they are given the same prominence as the Classifieds section which, presumably, associates will visit frequently.

Links

Links to the outside should be relevant to the business objectives of the intranet. While it may be relevant to link to a customer's Web site to review information about the customer, it may not be necessary to provide links to Internet sites that are unrelated to your business.

For example, the AcxInet home page has a number of links to Internet sites, all of which have the same prominence on the page. However, only the link to the Acxiom corporate Internet site really deserves prominent placement on the intranet home page.

Prioritization

For example, the FAQ section accessed from the Associate front page has a wealth of information about Acxiom's products buried within it. But I'm not sure anyone looking for product information would go to the Associate section to find it.

Recommended redesign

Specifically, Andrea Spertus, our senior information architect, redesigned the home page and the front page of the Corporate section. It wasn't just a redesign, however, but a rethinking based on the business objectives AcxInet is supposed to meet. Here's our analysis of the problems with each page and a recommended solution.

AcxInet home page

Scrolling down the page, a visitor is presented with three buttons that direct the visitor down Associate, Corporate or Customer paths. These are apparently the main sections of the site. There is also a link to a What's New? section and two search engines, one to search the intra-net and the other to access Internet search engines. The link to an external search engine seems unnecessary because searching the Internet is usually possible through a single click from the user's browser.

The What's New? section is the first place where the visitor encounters current, timely information. But clicking on the link brings you to yet another menu with only two choices. You are three clicks away from getting any information from the site.

The AcxInet team decided to make the front page a springboard for the Web, not necessarily just for AcxInet. 'A lot of people are still unaware of the business potential of the 'Net, and we chose to link to some of the most frequented sites to share in an easy-to-find place,' Acxiom's Tackett says.

So, in addition to links to other sections of AcxInet, the front page includes links to NASDAQ, Pointcast, Netscape, Microsoft, Sun, Apple, Yahoo, search.com, CNN Online, USA Today, Time-Warner, ESPNET, Weather and Dilbert.

While these are all excellent sites, the arrangement of the links on the AcxInet front page gives all the external sites equal weight with the internal sections.

The final element on the AcxInet front page is the navigation bar. This is at the very bottom of the page and requires scrolling down four times to reach it. The links on the navigation bar are 'Home' (the top of the page from this point), 'Tools,' 'Help,' 'Search' (AcxInet search, redundant on this page) and 'Feedback.'

The 'Help' link takes the visitor to the Netscape page. Tools, however, is an interesting section. It has a variety of helpful aids, such as automated classified ads, an automatic home page generator, a list of Internet service providers for personal accounts and information on how to build personal feedback pages.

The Tools page is one of the more popular. It gets almost 10 times the number of hits as the What's New? item that appears higher on the page, obviously an indicator of the value of the tools. The Tools page had 1,003 hits between Dec. 4 and 16, 1996.

Thus, the front page has no information on it. It is made up entirely of links. The page is static - it does not change and gives the visitor no indication of when the site was last updated.

For an intranet to be successful, it must be designed to encourage repeat visits. It is not enough to update content regularly; the site must adequately convey that new things are being added. If employees get the impression that the site is changing, they will be compelled to visit it regularly. The best way to give the site a dynamic feel is to create a dynamic front page.

The original AcxInet front page never changed. With its graphical links to What's New? and other areas of the site, it gives the user no clue as to when the contents were last updated. The user has no immediate way of telling whether this is a current site or merely one of the 'ghost pages' haunting the Web.

For our mockup of a revised front page, we significantly changed the design, but also the navigation strategy. The new design makes it immediately clear that the site is alive and well.

Instead of using unchanging graphics to draw users into the site, the new design brings the latest headlines directly to the very first screen. In this way, employees can quickly visit the site to see what has changed, instead of following multiple links before discovering some new announcement. Even the script-generated dateline at the top of the page serves as a subtle clue that the site is being updated frequently.

The new design also restructures how the site is navigated. Instead of dividing content into the ambiguous categories of Associate, Corporate and Customer, the new design considers the user's perspective and organizes the site more intuitively.

For example, the new design does away with the navigation bar at the bottom of the page and replaces it with a left-hand frame for navigation elements. These elements are dynamic, changing based on where the user is in the system.

On the home page, the navigation elements indicate the intranet's sections. The Community Pages relate to corporate culture. This is where the fun stuff is, like Associate pages and the hip page of the week. Company Info is the workhorse of the intranet. This is the section that should become an integral part of an associate's daily work life. Instead of the separate links to Internet sites that took up a lot of real estate on the original home page, there is one link to Using the Web, which can be a jumping off point to any Internet links the Webmaster wants to provide. Finally, there are readily available and accessible phone lists. Though not in this mockup, the navigation elements also would include a search option. This should link to an intelligent search engine that would let the visitor search the whole site or a particular section of the site.

Since it is an intranet, and you have more control over the client environment, you can be more creative, not having to worry that visitors will be on an unknown or unsupported platform. Thus, if everyone uses Netscape Navigator 3.0 as a browser, you can use Navigator extensions, such as frames, in your page design.

Corporate page

The Morgan's Minutes section, which displays weekly communications from Acxiom CEO Charles Morgan, is one of the most popular on the intranet. Yet, it is almost overshadowed by the other links that appear to have equal or greater importance.

There is, for example, an ambiguous link to Netscape, which brings up a FAQ concerning using the intranet with different versions of Netscape. This is on the same level as, and is actually before, Morgan's Minutes and the CapComm Business Case Form, which is one of the most important sections on AcxInet. The CapComm Business Case Form is the way in which all purchasing requests must be submitted.

The redesigned Corporate front page, now called Company Info, has the same visual graphic design elements as the redesigned home page. The dynamic navigation elements in the left-hand frame now include a Home link, which returns the visitor to the AcxInet home page. When you move down a level in the section, the navigation elements are updated again and now include links to the front pages of the other subsections in the Customer Info section.

The information in the Customer Info section is clearly divided into three subsections. Acxiom News contains dynamic information. Note that Morgan's Minutes, which has moved up in prominence from its previous position, is also a news item on the home page. Thus, visitors can gain immediate access to the latest message from the CEO as soon as they enter AcxInet, and can go to the Company Info section to review his previous messages.

Rather than just reorganizing the information from the Corporate section, however, the redesigned Customer Info section suggests added functionality. The Customer Service subsection is meant to be the place for associates to look for and find information that will help them provide quality customer service. This realizes the very first business objective of Acxiom's intranet. The White Papers section includes a nice feature - a user can automatically fax a copy of a white paper to a customer by simply clicking on a fax link.

Suggested enhancements

• Training. Acxion is using it's intranet for training by providing static Web pages. For real training and learning to take place, you need some degree of interactivity, for instance, use of a QuickCam and CUSeeMe for hands-on training.
• Intranet electronic commerce. This could include all activities that involve payment or accounting of costs, from office supplies to departmental cross charges, from travel expenses to software and information license fees.
• Direct database feeds from an intranet page. The Business Case Form in the existing system is a first step in this direction, but there is some hesitation on the part of users to give up their Excel spreadsheets in exchange for databases. Enabling users to access company databases via the intranet would add flexibility, ensure scalability and improve accuracy of data.

Summary

The obvious vision and ongoing leadership and support from Acxiom's management is reflected by the diversity of information and the attention to tools to support the associates. With planning and attention to information architecture, navigation flow and design, this impressive site will become more widely used and an integral part of Acxiom's business operations.