Taming the Data Tangle
By Mimi Rosenheim
Intranets are complex because they have complex objectives, whereas Internet sites cast a wide net and filter audiences into a few focused paths that eventually lead to a single call to action (such as a purchase transaction). Intranets provide all of the information available on a topic and let readers cull the data they need to complete the task at hand. Intranets cast a wide net, but the filtering is much more difficult. This is a major problem when more and more content gets jammed into an intranet by various corporate divisions. The result is often a resource that's too cumbersome to use.
To understand the complexities and requirements of intranet development, let's walk through the process of building an effective site.
Your Mission
Imagine that the mission is to design a comprehensive intranet site for a services division of a product company. These services are sold to customers and are comprised of products for technical support, professional services, and product training. The site needs to contain information that supports sales, product development, and marketing initiatives.
Site infrastructure is minimal and most of the functionality will be restricted to client-side programming magic. Remember that marketing and product managers—not engineers—will maintain the site content, so it must be easy to update.
The Audience
The first step is to identify the audiences that will use the site and determine their needs.
