Make Sure Your Intranet is Well-Perceived by Staff

Many intranets are only now beginning to show their true potential. However, many staff, having had unsatisfactory previous experiences of the intranet, may need quite some convincing that the intranet is now genuinely useful.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Workplace

Don't Fight Over Your Home Page

Most organisations spend most of their design time focusing on the homepage, often in tense negotiations with different departments, each jockeying for prominent positions in the global navigation. There’s more politics here than the appointment of a Fianna Fail junior minister.

Veale, Laurence. IQcontent (2006). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>Workplace

Effective Websites: The Responsibility of the Whole Organisation

Building an effective website is often seen exclusively as the job of the web team, and viewed as a design or technical issue. However, having worked with many different organisations, we would argue that often what stops them improving their website is the organisation itself. Developing an effective website often requires organisational change: it requires a culture where people at all levels in the organisation adopt behaviours that make a ‘good user experience’ an important goal. If the organisation is not focused on providing a good user experience, then the web team will be unable to build an effective website.

Burton-Taylor, Sarah. Usability News (2006). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>Workplace

Persuading People via Computer-Based Narratives  

Computer technology opens new doors for researching, creating, and distributing WIN (interactivity and narrative) experiences. Increased insight in this area could create a potential to change people’s attitudes and behaviors in ways never before possible. For example, in researching WIN experiences, our online system can now test stories to identify which stories have an impact on specific types of people. Alternately in creating WIN experiences, a computer could glean information from an interaction in order to select a specific story from a large database of proven stories. From a distribution standpoint, WIN experiences could be delivered through mobile handsets, increasing reach beyond the desktop. The potential for impact is significant. Computer-supported WIN experiences could lead to large-scale interventions to improve health, enhance learning and training, boost workplace performance, and motivate participation in civic life.

Fogg, B.J., Angela Booker and Abbe Don. Stanford University (2004). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Workplace>Persuasive Design

Placing Value on User Assistance

User assistance writers are often the Rodney Dangerfields of the UX world, bemoaning the fact that we don’t get any respect. I think the real problem is that user assistance folks are not particularly good at communicating the ways in which we add value to an enterprise. This column explores two models that show how user assistance adds value and how we can communicate that value to those who pay our salaries—something I would like to encourage other user assistance writers to do.

Hughes, Michael A. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Documentation>Technical Writing>Workplace

The User Experience of Enterprise Software Matters

Over the past twenty years, the field of user experience has been fortunate. Software and hardware product organizations increasingly have adopted user-centered design methods such as contextual user research, usability testing, and iterative interaction design. In large part, this has occurred because the market has demanded it. More than ever, good interaction design and high usability are part of the price of entry to markets.

Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>Software>Workplace

XML and its Emerging Uses Within the Enterprise

In 2000, as one of the first speakers at XML One, Rod discussed the merging of the web, XML, and messaging into the loosely coupled applications that today we call web services. Rod's Emerging Internet Technology team has continued to explore new uses for XML beyond SOA for enterprises. His talk will cover how XML is a cornerstone for new types of web applications - Do It yourself applications - which include applications through dynamic scripting languages and the intersection with other emerging areas such as Rich Interactive Applications.

Smith, Rod. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Content Management>XML>Workplace

Selling UX

At some point in your career, you’ll be called upon to sell UX to someone in your organization. You’ve probably already done it. Perhaps you’ll need to justify what you do in an organization or industry that’s just beginning to adopt UX methods or sell UX to secure your position within an organization or get future projects. So, what do you need to know to help you sell UX? What challenges might you face? This article examines what works and what does not work well when selling UX within an organization, identifies barriers you might encounter to the adoption of UX methods in your organization, and discusses how to package and present UX to stakeholders.

Szuc, Daniel, Paul J. Sherman and John S. Rhodes. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>Workplace

Evangelizing UX Across An Entire Organization

Executive buy-in is important, but communicating and selling the UX message across the organization, at all levels, is just as important. I would be most interested in learning more about the corporate cultures that embrace UX or customer-centered thinking and understanding more about why they have and what makes them ripe. What worked in the organizations you’ve worked for? What caused frustrations? It seems when everyone is trying to improve the user experience, it can help empower a usability / UX / design team to work on more strategic initiatives instead of facing roadblocks along the way.

Six, Janet M. UXmatters (2009). Articles>User Experience>Workplace

The Co-Working Revolution: Your Office Away From Home

I’ve been fascinated by businesses popping up around major metropolitan areas that create a shared workspace for independent workers. Imran Ali wrote about the trend of co-working spaces back in April, and I’ll be exploring the trend further as I look to set up a co-working space in my town.

Sherman, Aliza. Web Worker Daily (2008). Careers>Workplace>Collaboration>Coworking

Coworking Evolved

It’s interesting to see coworking snowballing as a phenomenon, but like many trends originating in dotcom culture, what’ll be most interesting is how these shifts begin to affect larger companies and more traditional employers.

Ali, Imran. Web Worker Daily (2008). Careers>Workplace>Collaboration>Coworking

Design Patterns for Coworking

Recently a member of the global coworking mailing list, Joseph Holsten) recently created what’s essentially a recipe book of ‘how to’ guides for those seeking to setup a coworking community, coworking space or simply better operate the communities and spaces they’re already running.

Ali, Imran. Web Worker Daily (2008). Careers>Workplace>Collaboration>Coworking

Coworking or Noworking?

An exploration of the downsides to telecommuting and coworking, focusing on the experiences of a coworking community founder.

Ali, Imran. Web Worker Daily (2008). Careers>Workplace>Coworking

Coworking, Childcare, Cubes

An interesting discussion on the potential of providing childcare facilities to coworkers – with the coworkers themselves dedicating a portion of their time to caring for the children of other community members.

Ali, Imran. Web Worker Daily (2008). Careers>Workplace>Coworking>Children

Creative Classes, Civic Regeneration and Coworking

This post speculates on the potential to revitalize decaying and vacant urban centers with new creative areas, by replacing discount stores, vacant properties and unused public libraries with coworking facilities.

Ali, Imran. Web Worker Daily (2008). Careers>Workplace>Coworking

Coworking in Africa, San Francisco and Bath

A look at the underlying value structure of coworking communities, how they’re evolving in different countries, and the issues existing coworking communities face as they outgrow the space available.

Ali, Imran. Web Worker Daily (2009). Careers>Workplace>Coworking>Case Studies

Coworking Community Blog

Coworking is a movement to create cafe-like community/collaboration spaces for developers, writers and independents.

Coworking.info. Resources>Workplace>Coworking

Should You Cater to Younger Workers?

If you cater to the younger group, you risk alienating your most senior people (talented, expensive, hard-to-replace experts; people you don't want to lose to the competition; people with great political capital in the organization, who can perhaps defeat an IT initiative by pushing back hard). On the other hand, if you cater to the older group, you risk alienating the younger workers; and you risk keeping obsolete systems in place far longer than you should, making future replacement that much more difficult while also impeding business objectives, etc.

assertTrue (2009). Articles>Content Management>User Centered Design>Workplace

Navigating the International Virtual Workplace: Strategies for Smooth Sailing in Global Communication    

Focusing mainly on cultural factors, linguistic factors, technical factors, and legal factors, Thakur discusses best practices for becoming globally savvy in an increasingly globalized work environment.

Thakur, Priti. Intercom (2009). Articles>Workplace>International

How To Get Fired

Much of today's news is bad, so much of it can adversely affect your career, and so much of it is maddeningly beyond your control. But there are things you can control, starting with your own behavior. Now more than ever, it's essential to ensure that idiosyncrasies and personal peccadillos don't undermine your career. Here are five cautionary tales of real CIOs whose tragic flaws did them in.

Pratt, Mary K. Computerworld (2009). Careers>Management>Workplace>Collaboration

Integrate Yourself!    

Looking for a way to demonstrate your value to management? Pao’s advice is to become as involved in your organization as possible by volunteering for assignments and being proactive in project planning.

Pao, Cynthia. Intercom (2009). Careers>Collaboration>Workplace>Planning

Unmanaging Knowledge - How to Tell the Boss to Back Off

You’ve got a pretty good boss, yet he or she still heeds the traditional creed of command and control. But it doesn’t work for you. You’re engaged in knowledge work and you’d like to tell the boss to back off. What do you do? Explain it to the boss first chance you get. Here’s a good way to do it.

Ehin, Charles. Smart People (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Workplace

Old Media, Technical Writers, and the Evolution of Documentation

Technical writers are an important and underutilized asset to most businesses; however, I also believe that technical writers have to fundamentally alter the way they approach the problem of educating users and helping them find the answers they need before they will be properly valued by the businesses that employ them.

LugIron Software Blog (2009). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Workplace

Integrating Social Media Into Existing Work Environments: The Case of Delicious    

This article offers an example case of technical communicators integrating the social bookmarking site Delicious into existing work environments. Using activity theory to present conceptual foundations and concrete steps for integrating the functionalities of social media, the article builds on research within technical communication that argues for professional communicators to participate more fully in the design of communication systems and software. By examining the use of add-ons and tools created for Delicious, and the customized use of Rich Site Syndication (RSS) feeds that the site publishes, the author argues for addressing the context-sensitive needs of project teams by integrating the functionality of social media applications generally and repurposing their user-generated data.

Stolley, Karl. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>Workplace>Collaboration>Social Networking

Breaking the Chain of Command: Making Sense of Employee Circumvention    

This study explores how employees accounted for their engagement in circumvention (i.e., dissenting by going around or above one's supervisor). Employees completed a survey instrument in which they provided a dissent account detailing a time when they chose to practice circumvention. Results indicated that employees accounted for circumvention through supervisor inaction, supervisor performance, and supervisor indiscretion. In addition, findings revealed how employees framed circumvention in ways that enhanced the severity and principled nature of the issues about which they chose to dissent.

Kassing, Jeffrey W. JBC (2009). Articles>Management>Workplace>Ethnographies