|
Reflection
How
I Chose Intranet Web Design as a Focus for this Web Site
This subject interested me because I work with an intranet every
day at work. I am a technical writer for a large insurance company.
In my work, I help people in various areas of the company write
internal communications and develop internal web sites. Many of
the communication vehicles we use are distributed electronically
through the intranet.
Of course,
in my day-to-day work with the company intranet, I come up against
various challenges. So, I decided that I had a great opportunity
to combine my work on a final project for my English 351 class
with some research into usability and design for intranets. Along
the way, I hoped to find some possible solutions to the intranet
and communication problems I had encountered at work.
back
to top
How
I Conducted Research for this Web Site
I gathered articles online about designing for the Internet and
about designing for an intranet, and then I compared the two groups
of information. I found many similarities, but what I focused
on for this site were the differences. I also read Jakob Nielsen's
Designing Web Usability. In reading this book and these
articles, I often compared the examples they provided to my own
work experiences.
back
to top
Interesting
Observations from My Research
I thought it was interesting to read about the intranet uses and
design techniques for small companies since I'm used to working
on intranet sites for a very large company with locations across
the US and Canada. For example, intranets of very small companies
can be used to facilitate company wide communication activities
such as chat sessions. This isn't feasible for intranets of large
companies because of the sheer number of participants and because
it would be very difficult to maintain. And, small companies can
try new design techniques on a regular basis because they can
make changes to their intranet relatively quickly. Such changes
do not happen often on large companies' intranets because they
usually have so many pages that a design change would take large
amounts of time and money.
I was surprised
to read that Nielsen encouraged the use of cutting-edge design
features on intranets. He said that the use of such features as
video and flash could be utilized on intranets because all of
the users had the same hardware and software capabilities, whereas
with the Internet, users' capabilities are unknown. I think this
surprised me because corporate culture right now is focused on
saving time and money-we are always encouraged to stay away from
the unnecessary, fancy stuff.
back
to top
The
Impact of My Research on My Work
I think the two design principles that I learned about that will
have the greatest impact on my work are: 1) pleasing, attractive
design is still important on intranets because the appearance
can be used to convey an attitude to employees; and 2) it's important
to make sure that all of the pages on an intranet have some degree
of consistency and unity because employees will be confused and
frustrated if the pages are chaotic. I am hoping to start work
on a project that will do a complete overhaul of each department's
intranet site. As we begin to redesign these sites, I want to
set a template for them in order to make sure they've got a similar
layout. As a result, I think employees will be able to tell that
the intranet sites were carefully planned and they'll be able
to find information and complete tasks more easily.
back
to top
Designing
this Web Site
I used another Web site as a model. I knew I wanted to have a
general title bar across the top of the screen, with a menu underneath.
I then decided to divide the content on the home page into blocks
and I added background color to distinguish one of these blocks.
I thought about putting all of my personal experiences, comments,
and observations in a separate part of the site, but in the end,
I decided that it would work better if I kind of weaved them throughout
the whole site. I began to add content and then I added rollover
images to the main menu bar. I continued to use tables with this
site because of my past success and because of the skills I have
recently gained. In some of the content pages of the site, I first
divided the content into sections with anchors. Later, I decided
to make each of these sections into another page. I also added
menu bars at the bottom of the pages for better usability.
back
to top
Where
I Will Take this Web Site from Here
I think that I'd like to use this site as a development and logging
tool. As I continue to gather experiences with intranet and Internet
sites, I can add more links and information to this site. I may
also add a repository to keep track of sites that I have designed
along with commentary on what techniques worked best and which
did not work well. If I can take time to change this site and
make its appearance more professional, I might be able to use
this site as part of a training process for employees who begin
to work on intranet sites.
back
to top
|
