How to build an Intranet that boosts productivity

Introduction

What is a Digital Workplace?

A digital workplace is the digital transformation of work processes and systems, driven by the need to improve employee engagement to reduce turnover and maintain a competitive workforce. It’s a larger strategy that ties together workspaces, apps, processes, and culture for an integrative employee-first digital solution. Portal platforms, collaboration suites, and intranet point solutions have evolved to better meet the needs of the digital workplace, but a full solution generally requires an integrated set of systems to truly meet the needs of a modern workforce. Many organizations may have digital tools in place; however, these tools are outdated, disjointed, and have not been built with an underlying digital workplace strategy in mind.

A Modern Intranet for the Digital Workplace

User research is the study of how real people use a product. Feedback techniques like interviews and testing can help you plan an informed design. User research allows you to identify challenges upfront. On average, programmers abandon up to 15% of IT projects due to a lack of adequate research. If the project isn’t abandoned, they then spend at least 50% of their time redoing work. Interviewing users early on ensures that you’re creating something people will want to use. For your intranet, the goal of user research is to discover who your users are and how they get their work done. In this article, we’ll focus on questions you can ask to uncover pain points and priorities for each user. Armed with this information, you will be able to target real, specific obstacles to productivity from the beginning. Project leaders should allow plenty of time for in-person interviews with users. The following guidelines will help users feel comfortable and open to sharing honestly about the obstacles in their daily tasks.

What is User Research?

User research is the study of how real people use a product. Feedback techniques like interviews and testing can help you plan an informed design. User research allows you to identify challenges upfront. On average, programmers abandon up to 15% of IT projects due to a lack of adequate research. If the project isn’t abandoned, they then spend at least 50% of their time redoing work. Interviewing users early on ensures that you’re creating something people will want to use. For your intranet, the goal of user research is to discover who your users are and how they get their work done. In this article, we’ll focus on questions you can ask to uncover pain points and priorities for each user. Armed with this information, you will be able to target real, specific obstacles to productivity from the beginning. Project leaders should allow plenty of time for in-person interviews with users. The following guidelines will help users feel comfortable and open to sharing honestly about the obstacles in their daily tasks.