Influencing User behaviour with Intranet Design

There are so many aspects that we consider when going through our process for agreeing the best intranet design for a new customer.

One relatively simple one to discuss is how do we make sure users can find what we assume they will be looking for – an also how can we encourage them to visit an area that they might not think would be interesting or relevant?

One part of the answer is through what Claromentis describe as “fast access buttons”

These are significantly sized buttons that provide a visual pull to certain areas of the intranet. They are also – like everything else in Claromentis – permission based so that certain groups of users will see different icons. In this way we can try to predict what should be of interest to those users, and encourage them to take the actions we require.

Andy Briggs from our custom design team recently produced a great document on intranet design, and this is a diagram from the section on fast access buttons:

For interest I also show the access areas that are promoted for me on our own Claromentis Intranet.

Lets look at the 10 buttons that are presented to me and summarize each one :

• Company Policies – Claromentis has a duty to ensure I have every chance to read our policies, and this button is extremely appropriate for discharging that responsibility
• Audits – we are a quality managed ISO9001 company and I have access to all of our internal audits, and the actions arising from them
• Dev Wiki – even in sales it is great to have access to internal technical resources!
• Discover Claromentis – our support portal – allows me to review any issues or enhancement requests that my clients may have filed
• Webex – we provide private tours for anyone interested in our software and I use this every day
• Live demo – access to our standard live intranet and business process management demonstration system
• Blog Admin – as you can see I write blogs and I don’t want to remember another set of credentials!
• Marketing database – exactly the same – provides access to a web based system that I use extensively
• Google Analytics – useful to periodically review our traffic sources and what they are looking for
• National Rail – access to the live departure board at Brighton station – I commute by train and this is just a convenience for me.

So fast access buttons provide :

• Single sign on access to other web applications – the intranet provides a gateway to your digital workspace.
• Convenience for the user
• A way for the company to encourage my participation in certain applications or information areas.