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

I am participating in a tender for the redesign of a large public intranet, and this opportunity has given me the opportunity to reflect more closely the architecture of large-scale intranet information, especially related to public administrations, but not all.

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

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

1. fast realization (in the meantime we go online, then maybe we modify during construction)
2. presumption organizational (I know the company, the contents must be organized around the processes of marketing)
3. habits (we usually in paper files things organizations code freshman)
4. underestimation strategic (information architecture, and what to do with the Web? Rather, we have sent the draft graphics?)
5. Approximation methodology (I have spoken to the bar with the manager and said that my guess is OK)
6. Little attention to users (do not they? But if you are right there, under the subsection "operational departments!)
7. Megalomaniac impulses (do as you like, 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, causing the fast-growing frustration, headaches, depression cosmic subjective effects that become, at best, the painful realization that must sooner or later, "putting his hand" something that at first 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 presents 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 is it worth still pass in review.

Model 1: Architecture for business sectors

Metaphor: organizational chart

Benefits

- Easy to identify the owner of the section. In some cases, may coincide with the representatives of the working group.
- Relative speed in building architecture. E 'enough based company already established concerning the establishment, going in depth with the sub-structures and associated with sub-sections.

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 in this architecture.
- Flux. The sectors, as well as the company, are constantly changing, and the architecture is likely to age very quickly.
- Low findable. Many topics, intranet services and content are perceived by employees so distanced itself from the fields, and may therefore not be found with ease.
- Poor scalability. It 'very easy sections first level becomes too much, and unmanageable
- Flattening content. The blurring of HR and, say, Law, means, generally, do not take into account the needs of users, on average, more interested in the first and second
- Poor visibility of services. All elements of service and operational tasks related to specific users are months in the background

When use

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

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Model 2: Architecture for thematic

Metaphor library

Benefits

- Identification of specific issues. It 'pretty easy 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 the sections.

Disadvantages

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

When use

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

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Model 3: Architecture for formats

Metaphor: FNAC (?)

Benefits

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

Disadvantages

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

When use

Personally my favorite is one of the architectures for the good compromise between offering 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 preserved elegance in the background. Although in some cases it is necessary to associate sailing parallel to aspects related to projects or sectors.

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Model 4: Architecture for events

Metaphor: public office

Benefits

- Architecture narrow. E 'architecture that is not likely to explode, at least the first level
- Focus on the activity. The reference to some activity that people can make is certainly attractive.

Disadvantages

- Contents multiappartenenza. Some content does not belong on the specific event of corporate life and become difficult to place in this architecture. Services as a forum for technical help desk belonging to "information", "work" or "work"?
- Low findable. Many topics, intranet services and content are perceived by employees so distanced itself from the events and may therefore not be found with ease.
- 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 simple organizational chart or subject areas, 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 'much easier to build their 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 easily to match the overall content and content-specific or personal. It 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: Tool box

Benefits

- Distinctness 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 working with the extended basin of Contributors

Disadvantages

- Loss of control of drafting. This type of architecture leaves much autonomy to the users of the space area in employment, losing the chance to "pushing" on certain topics / services
- Separation of content. Being service-related content section can contain the most diverse (the blog of project along with the AD, the forms together with the presentations, the forum along with that cazzeggio desk)

When use

This type of architecture is flexible enough to contenre praticametne everything and allows easy identification of available services. And 'good almost exclusively for the intranet that are presented as "gateway" service, or as platforms "neutral" users can then use as they please in many ways. And 'in fact the intranet architecture As A Service (IAAS), in which the drafting, 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 - Rooms of house

Benefits

- Elegance. This type of architecture has the advantage of elegance and a certain harmony in the background.
- Short. Usually this type of architecture-level 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 well focused on the actions that users can take to avoid ambiguity and orienting the environment fers a scenario active and participatory.

Disadvantages

- Poco "scent of information". This architecture, good 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
- Mixing. Some content might end up all in a single container, which gradually degenerates.

When use

Like all the typical architectural services "2.0", this approach strongly reflects the logic of "action" that the user must make on an application. Therefore it is contraindicated in large intranets, which offer a variety of services and as many "situations" in which it is necessary to present information. It 'a very good type of architecture for specific applications, intranet small and very focused on specific tasks or for 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 of the concrete architectures that meet in reality can not, nor should they be constructed using a model P "uro", chosen from among the 7 that I listed. Rather, what really works is a wise mix that with the prevailing architecture is capable of adding elements from other architecture capable of integrating with the prevalence and use mental maps of users. Sometimes you need to enter into an architecture for thematic areas the "HR, other times it is appropriate to include the heading" Blogs "architecture for membership. not be elegant, but it works.

Associate multiple architectures. In large intranet is always a good idea to associate multiple architectures, in order to offer an alternative view of the same type of information. In some cases it may be two parallel architectures, other architectures that start below the secondary core architecture. Almost mail, in case of large projects, a single metaphor is able to grasp all the contents. In most cases, the architectures are alternated depending on the level of depth. For example:

- Surface architectures formats or membership
- Deep architectures for task or subject areas

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

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