Besides the organization. Notes for the information architecture of the intranet

I'm participating in a tender for the redesign of a large public intranet, and this opportunity gave me the opportunity to reflect more closely the architecture of information intranet large, especially related to the government but not only.

I refer in particular to the construction of the architecture of the first level, which is of course only part of broader information architecture. However, obviously, is a fundamental choice that will guide the evolution of the entire space over time and requires special care planning.

But often in this area are committed very lightly, which is rapidly converted into decisive errors. The reasons for these errors are related to many factors:

1. quickly realized (while we go online, then maybe we modify during construction)
2. presumption organizational (I know the company well, the contents are organized around the marketing processes)
3. habits (we usually in paper files to organize things by code number)
4. strategic underestimation (information architecture? And what to do with the Web? Rather, we have sent the draft graphics?)
5. Approximation methodology (I spoke with the manager at the bar and said that my guess is fine)
6. Little attention to the people (do not find it? But if you are right there, under the subsection "Operational Functions!)
7. Megalomaniac instincts (as you want, but the company's mission is to appear first)

And many, many others are not easily classifiable. The result of this lightweight design is usually a mess growing rapidly, causing frustration, headaches, depression cosmic subjective effects that become, at best, the painful realization that must sooner or later, "put his hand" something that at first glance seemed functional, but now has become a monster unapproachable.

Yet the top-level architecture of an intranet, however complex, is not an object so enigmatic. In fact, you can easily identify some typical construction, each of which has a number of advantages and disadvantages.

I will try to list them, identifying the distinctive features. As you will see some are very naive and unsuitable for nearly all typical situations that may arise. But it's worth still pass in review.

Model 1: Architecture for business units

Metaphor: Organization

Benefits

- Easy to identify the owner of the Chamber. In some cases it may coincide with the representatives of the working group.
- Relative speed in building architecture. It 'simply based company already defined the organizational chart, going in depth with the sub-structures and associating the subsections.

Disadvantages

Are many. I list some, but there are certainly other

- Difficult management of transversality. Very low do not belong to a specific business sector, and it becomes difficult to place them in this architecture.
- Flux. The sectors, as well as the company continually changing, and the architecture is likely to age very quickly.
- Low findable. Many topics, intranet services and content are perceived by employees in relation to other industries decoupled, and therefore may not be found easily.
- Poor scalability. It 'very easy sections first level becomes too much, and unmanageable
- Blunted content. Equate HR and say, Legal, means, generally ignore the needs of users, usually more interested in the first and second
- Poor visibility of services. All elements of service and operational tasks related to specific months of the users are in the background

When use

The only sensible way to use an architecture like that is when we are in the presence of so many separate intranet, one for each sector and we need to still provide a single point of access to different sections., In this case the "portal" anything, in fact, a door to other introductory intranet industry, with its architecture.

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Model 2: Architecture for themes

Metaphor library

Benefits

- Identification of specific issues. It 'easy enough to identify the various themes and content and group them according to a rational scheme.
- Content owner. Even in this case is fairly easy to identify the content owners and operators of sections.

Disadvantages

- Overflow. This architecture could very quickly derailed into a crowd of topics which makes it useless in the long run.
- Labeling. Gaps in the labeling becomes difficult cases and the recall of asssbassare intelegibilità architecture from the side of users. In some cases the information becomes difficult to find from the first click.
- Flattening of content. In this architecture the various issues likely to obscure the specific tasks users: In some cases it becomes difficult to point out that in some areas there are services or interactive user-generated content.

When use

And 'good architecture for environments linked to information and with a growth rate content. In environments with lots of interactive services with a high rate of information growth is likely to turn into a boomerang.

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Model 3: Architecture for sizes

Metaphor: FNAC (?)

Benefits

- Lerneability. And 'architecture with a relatively low learning curve, which facilitates the lives of average people in the environment.
- Stability. And 'architecture that is resistant to organizational change.

Disadvantages

- Depth. And 'architecture which could be very deep because of the sublevels is often necessary to create.
- Invisibility sectors. Unlike before, is an architecture that makes the invisible fields of business and does not provide specific spaces for them by the. In some cases this may be a problem.

When use

Personally I prefer is one of architecture, which offers the good compromise between scalability, intelligibility, completeness. Very good for intranet content rich with diverse content in terms of format, and is able to accommodate the expansion of content and services quite easily retaining the elegance of the fund. Although in some cases it is necessary to combine sailing parallel to aspects of projects or sectors.

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Model 4: Architecture for events

Metaphor: Public counters

Benefits

- Architecture narrow. And 'architecture that threatens to explode, at least the first level
- Focus on the activity. The reference to some activity that people can make is certainly attractive.

Disadvantages

- Content multiappartenenza. Some content does not belong on the specific event of corporate life and become difficult to place them in this architecture. Services as a forum for technical help desk belong to "inform", "work" or "work"?
- Low findable. Many topics, intranet services and content are perceived by employees so disassociated with respect to events and therefore may not be found easily.
- Integration of different formats. In the same container can end up very different in content format (news, documents, interactive services, applications) and by type of activity required (reading, writing, collaboration, etc.).

When use

It is certainly a step forward compared to an architecture for organization or for simple themes, but the use of this architecture is a risk if it is not associated with research on users and their "mental map" than business information. After a serious research work can be a valuable alternative to previous models.

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Model 5: Architecture for membership

Metaphor: local news - Buffet

Benefits

- Focus on the individual. The information is much more focused on the needs of the individual.
- Customization. It 's much easier to build your own schedule.

Disadvantages

- Difficult content management extraprofilo. It becomes difficult to manage content and services that are not associated directly to the person's profile.
- Risk of overflow in the general section. The general part is likely to be overloaded with content and service heterogeneous

When use

Almost all large intranets can benefit from this type of architecture because it allows you to easily combine general contents and specific contents or personal. Requires a certain learning curve and the architecture combined with a second-level "conventional" (poer themes or formats).

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Model 6: Architecture for services

Metaphor: Toolbox

Benefits

- Distinctness of services. Each service is easily distinguishable and readily available.
- Relative speed in building architecture. It 'simply based on the set of services available
- Relative ease of coordination. It is not necessary to identify specific individuals for the management of individual sections, but work with the extended basin of Contributors

Disadvantages

- Loss of editorial control. This type of architecture leaves much autonomy to people in employment space space, losing the possibility of "pushing" of certain topics / services
- Separation of content. Being tied to the services section can contain many different content (the blog project together with the AD, the forms together with the presentations, the forum cazzeggiano along with the desk)

When use

This type of architecture is flexible enough contenre praticametne everything and allows easy identification of services available. And 'good almost exclusively for intranet that arise as "gateway" service, or platforms as "neutral" users can then use as they please in many different ways. E 'word from intranet architecture As A Service (IAAS), in which editing, or working group is responsible only to animate the space and provide services, which are then endorsed by groups of users.

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Model 7: Architecture for Task

Metaphor: Console Command - Room home

Benefits

- Elegance. This architecture has the advantage of elegance and a certain harmony in the background.
- Brevity. Usually this type of architecture tier tends to be short, with a few well-identified tasks for the benefit of ease of use.
- Focus on the actions of individuals. By definition, this architecture is clearly focused on the actions users can take to avoid ambiguity and directing environmental scourge scenario active and participatory.

Disadvantages

- A little "information scent". This architecture, perfect for simple user tasks, it loses value as the content grows, losing "information scent".
- Content "intractable". With this kind of metaphor for some content will be difficult to treat, unable to express them with an appropriate verb
- Blending. Some content may end up all in one container, which gradually degenerates.

When use

Like all typical architectural services "2.0", this approach strongly reflects the logic of "action" the user must make on an application. It is therefore contraindicated in large intranets, which offer a variety of services and as many "situations" where it is necessary to present information. It 'just kind of architecture for individual applications, intranet and small very focused on specific tasks or specific sub-sections, but is unlikely to capture all the actual "user tasks" for large intranets.

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Concluding remarks

Forget purity. Most architectures that meet the practical realities can not nor should be constructed according to a model P "uro", chosen from the 7 I listed. Rather, what really works is a wise mix that with the prevailing architecture is capable of adding elements from other architectures capable of integrating with the prevailing use and mental maps of users. Sometimes you need to enter into an architecture for thematic areas the "HR is sometimes appropriate to include the" Blogs "in an architecture for membership. will not be elegant, but it works.

Associated with multiple architectures. In large intranet is always a good rule to associate multiple architectures, in order to offer an alternative vision of the same type of information. In some cases may be two parallel architectures, other architectures that start in the secondary core architecture. Almost email, in case of large projects, a single metaphor can capture all the contents. In most cases the alternate architectures depending on the level of depth. For example:

- Surface architectures or membership sizes
- Deep architectures for tasks or areas

Are examples only: in reality things are evaluated on a case by case basis.

Listen to users. No architecture can function without a constant and careful listening to users, or colleagues. If in doubt you can rest assured that they will lift them there. Use the tools available (card sorting, interviews etc.) and Faten treasure before building architecture.