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Understanding the client and the organization

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Create, share and act on information and knowledge ... They create interdependency and goal conflicts. They are social creations that reflect organizational politics ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Understanding the client and the organization


1
Understanding the client and the organization
  • I. Working with the client
  • Taking the clients point of view
  • Formal communication with the client
  • II. Understanding the organization
  • Organizational informatics
  • III. Working with the user
  • User needs and information seeking
    behavior

2
I. Working with the client
  • http//justbloggin.org/ archives/cat_fun.html

3
I. Working with the client
  • Effective collaboration in a design project
    requires a structured development process
  • Research gather information to develop a high
    level understanding of business context, goals,
    existing IA
  • Strategy high level framework for site, content
    types, initial metadata
  • Design wireframe, style guide, page guides,
    database structures, prototypes
  • Implementation build, test, change, launch
  • Administration maintenance, evaluation,
    improvement
  • Rosenfeld and Morville, Ch. 10

4
I. Working with the client
  • Research areas and methods
  • Context
  • Background research, presentations and meetings,
    stakeholder interviews, technology assessment
  • Content
  • Heuristic evaluation, metadata and content
    analysis, content mapping, benchmarking
  • Users
  • Search log and clickstream analysis, use cases
    and personas, contextual inquiry, user
    interviews and testing

5
I. Working with the client
  • Getting buy-in
  • Managing the client is essential to the success
    of the project
  • Who is the client?
  • The client can be a person, a group, a
    department, or a company
  • Who signed the contract?
  • What are the best strategies for developing and
    maintaining good relations with the client?
  • You are working to ensure that the client will
    trust you throughout the project

6
I. Working with the client
  • What does the client want?
  • As a website designer, you should be finding out
    your clients aspirations for the website
  • If the clients are an airplane parts
    distributor, do they want to become the
    world's leading parts store, shifting as many
    units as possible every day?
  • If the client is an engineering company, do
    they just want to show the world their
    services?
  • What do they want the customer to be able to do
    when they come to the site?

7
I. Working with the client
  • Internal clients
  • These clients are within your own company
  • You must understand how the project fits into
    the companys organizational structure and
    processes
  • This is an exercise in systems analysis and
    competitive intelligence
  • Who supports the project? Why?
  • What are the political risks?
  • What is the budget?
  • What will be necessary to build and maintain
    consensus?

8
I. Working with the client
  • External clients
  • These clients sign a contract with your company
  • Where does the client fits in the organization?
  • Does he or she have the authority to make
    decisions about the project?
  • Does he or she have good relations with
    superior, peers, and subordinates?
  • It is important to get the client to buy in
  • What are the best ways to do this?
  • It will depend on your ability to communicate
    with the client throughout the development
    process

9
I. Working with the client
  • Taking the clients point of view
  • You should expect that your client will not be as
    interested in or knowledgeable about web
    development as you are
  • Education is important
  • The client should understand
  • How the project will be carried out
  • Steps, phases, responsibilities, and
    deliverables
  • What critical factors could affect the project
  • What the level of client involvement should be
    throughout the project

10
I. Working with the client
  • Understanding business strategy
  • It is the selection of ideas and assets to meet
    long term goals and sustainable competitive
    advantage
  • What to do, how to do it, how well it is being
    done
  • What are the orgs strengths and weaknesses?
  • What differentiates the org?
  • Takes place within a shifting competitive
    environment
  • Business strategy drives design and informs IA
    practice
  • IA provides alignment and exposes gaps in
    business strategy
  • Rosenfeld and Morville, Ch 18

11
II. Understanding the organization
  • Business strategy and IA are interrelated
  • Organizational communication should support
    strategy
  • Web sites, extranets, and intranets play key
    roles in defining relationships between a
    company and its customers, investors,
    suppliers, and employees
  • The design, implementation, and maintenance of
    these channels become critical success factors
  • They should be carefully aligned with business
    strategy
  • Requires understanding of organizational
    structures, processes, and culture

12
II. Understanding the organization
  • A graphical depiction of business
    strategy
  • Morville (2000) http//argus-acia.com/stra
    nge_connections/strange006.html

13
II. Understanding the organization
  • A graphical depiction of IA
  • Morville (2000) http//argus-acia.com/stra
    nge_connections/strange006.html

14
I. Working with the client
  • One key is understanding what the client thinks
    about the project
  • Envisioning the project from the clients point
    of view
  • Why does the client want this project done?
  • Where does this project fit into the clients
    overall view of the business? Is it central?
    Peripheral?
  • What is at stake for the client in this
    project?
  • What is critical to the success of the project?
  • What resources are necessary?
  • What people are necessary?

15
I. Working with the client
  • Try to determine the clients understanding of
    their audience
  • Who do they think their users are?
  • What type of experience do they want people to
    have when using the site? What do they want
    them to do?
  • Where do they want them to spend the most
    time?
  • Do the research
  • Learn about the clients business
  • What is their value proposition?
  • What are the main ways in which they generate
    revenue?

16
I. Working with the client
  • Communicating the work process to the client is a
    good way to build a relationship
  • This indicates your professionalism
  • What is the methodology?
  • What are the deliverables?
  • What will you deliver to the client and when?
  • What does the client have to deliver to you so
    that you can meet your goals?
  • What approvals are necessary?
  • These should always be in writing

17
I. Working with the client
  • Presentations and meetings
  • Introductory kickoff to bring the team up to
    speed
  • Strategy team meet with the decisionmakers in
    the organization to find out about the site
  • Content management team meet with content
    owners and managers to find out about types,
    policies, processes
  • IT team meet with system administrators and
    software, database developers to understand the
    technical infrastructure
  • Rosenfeld and Morville, Ch. 10

18
I. Working with the client
  • Formal communication with the client
  • Legal communications
  • Letter of agreement
  • Your company has been contracted to do the work
  • Work begins after receiving a deposit
  • Brief description of the project
  • Non-disclosure agreement
  • Protects the exchange of confidential
    information and both parties intellectual
    property
  • Contracts specify constraints and deliverables

19
I. Working with the client
  • Project communications
  • It is important to document project-based
    communication
  • Assumptions should be discussed openly and early
  • What are your responsibilities?
  • What are the clients responsibilities?
  • What steps depend on deliverables from the
    client?
  • Scope and costs
  • What is the size of the project?
  • What are the deadlines?
  • Should emphasize time frames and costs

20
I. Working with the client
  • Approval documents
  • The client should sign off on each benchmark and
    deliverable
  • These detail the various components and features
  • Could include high-level IA, prototype
    navigation, search functions, forms, database
    design
  • Site reviews
  • Purpose of the review is to obtain client
    feedback and maintain communication and buy in
  • You explain how your design fits their needs

21
I. Working with the client
  • Conducting the site review
  • Presenting the creative concept to the client on
    or offline
  • Prepare in advance by reviewing the site with
    the team
  • Anticipate the clients reactions based on
    what you have learned
  • Frame the concept around the objectives of the
    site
  • Be ready and able to explain the reasoning for
    the design decisions
  • Clearly link these decisions to the project
    objectives and requirements

22
Understanding the client and the organization
  • I. Working with the client
  • Taking the clients point of view
  • Formal communication with the client
  • II. Understanding the organization
  • Organizational informatics
  • III. Working with the user
  • User needs and information seeking
    behavior

23
II. Understanding the organization
  • Organizational informatics
  • The study of organizations and their uses of
    information and ICTs
  • People using ICTs are within organizational
    boundaries
  • A main focus is on the social organization of
    work
  • The social shaping of technology in the
    workplace
  • Digital technologies are embedded in a web of
    computing
  • This includes the machines, those who use and
    maintain them, those who pay for them, those
    setting policies for their use

24
II. Understanding the organization
  • The context of ICTs use directly affects their
    meanings and roles
  • Design of ICTs is linked to social and
    organizational dynamics, and these dynamics are
    contextual
  • ICTs are always linked to their environments of
    use
  • ICTs are not value neutral
  • They are often designed, implicitly or
    explicitly, to support social and
    organizational structures
  • ICT use leads intended and unintended
    consequences
  • Use has moral and ethical aspects and these have
    social consequences

25
II. Understanding the organization
  • ICTs are configurable collections of distinct
    components
  • These are assembled into unique collections for
    each organization or group
  • The multiple functions and ability to reprogram
    them means that ICTs highly re-configurable
  • ICTs follow trajectories that favor the status
    quo
  • An evolving series of products or versions with
    a history and a future
  • Preexisting relationships of power and social
    life are often maintained and strengthened
  • Their evolution is social history and technical
    progress

26
II. Understanding the organization
  • Organizations consist of individuals in social
    networks
  • Create, share and act on information and
    knowledge
  • Social structure social relationships persist
    over time
  • Organizational structure connections and
    dependencies among organization members
  • Connections may reflect
  • Authority who reports to whom
  • Informal organization who communicates with
    whom
  • Structure and workflow who depends on whom
  • Social relationships who likes whom

27
II. Understanding the organization
  • An example of organizational
    structure UN Human Rights
    Organizational
  • http// www.unhchr.ch/hrostr.htm

28
II. Understanding the organization
  • Organizational size matters
  • There are differences between large and small
    organizations
  • Also in working on large and small scale sites
  • And between single and multi-departmental
    sites
  • Who is responsible for doing the work?
  • Who manages the workflow?
  • Ad-hoc coalitions are typical (Burdman 112)
  • What are the costs and benefits of this
    approach?
  • Is there a need for a dedicated team to manage
    the site?

29
II. Understanding the organization
  • A example of workflow (IA)
  • Tal Herman for Merrill-Hall New
    Media
  • http//www.seralat.com/.../ ia_work/ia_job_analysi
    s/.gif

30
II. Understanding the organization
  • How does the web fit into the overall
    organizational culture and structure?
  • Who funds the web work?
  • What major groups are involved in developing and
    maintaining the site?
  • This may be individuals instead of groups
  • What is the role of IS? Marketing?
  • What is the position of the major stakeholders
    (executives and decision makers) on the web
    effort?
  • What do they want from the site?

31
II. Understanding the organization
  • Multiple departments and groups may be involved
  • Typically they provide content
  • How can their needs be met and balanced against
    each other?
  • What do these stakeholders want from the site?
  • Who gets onto the home or top level pages and
    why?
  • Managing this issue becomes more complex if
    these groups contribute financially to the
    costs of the site
  • Having a clear sense of the larger
    organizational business strategy is
    essential here
  • Understanding organizational politics is
    important

32
II. Understanding the organization
  • Conflict in web work Eschenfelder argues that
    web classification systems contribute to conflict
    in site design
  • They create interdependency and goal conflicts
  • They are social creations that reflect
    organizational politics
  • Also there problems with the conception of the
    customer
  • Different sub-units with different needs and
    goals draw on the idea of customer needs or
    expectations to argue for different design
    outcomes
  • Eschenfelder, K. (2003). The customer is always
    right, but whose customer is more important?
    Conflict and Web site classification schemes.
    Information Technology People, 16,(4), 419-439.

33
Understanding the client and the organization
  • I. Working with the client
  • Taking the clients point of view
  • Formal communication with the client
  • II. Understanding the organization
  • Organizational informatics
  • III. Working with the user
  • User needs and information seeking
    behavior

34
III. Working with the user
  • User needs and information seeking behavior
  • Modeling user behavior how can we do this?
  • Stimulus response model
  • Query to the system
  • System processes query black box
  • Response from system
  • This is a mechanistic model based on a systems
    metaphor
  • The user engages in predictable behaviors
  • Under what type of conditions does this work?

35
III. Working with the user
  • A different approach is based on information
    needs and information seeking behavior
  • Why is it important to understand the user?
  • Users have information needs
  • Where do information needs originate?
  • ASK, gaps, anomalies
  • Information needs lead to information seeking
    behaviors
  • These behaviors vary as the needs vary
  • Browsing, broad searching, directed searching

36
III. Working with the user
  • It is important for IAs to understand information
    needs
  • It is more than ask a question--gt Magic --gt get
    answer
  • There is more complex interaction at query
  • What type of need? What is the best way to ask
    the question?
  • In the system
  • What is the best way to store, arrange and
    retrieve and matching?
  • At the output
  • What is the best form? How can it be interpreted?

37
III. Working with the user
  • Types of information seeking
  • Direct answer (perfect catch) you know what you
    want
  • The criteria for relevance are precise
  • Exploratory searching (lobster trapping) an
    open-ended question with a range of potentially
    relevant answers
  • The criteria for relevance are vague and
    emergent
  • Thorough searching (driftnetting) exhaustively
    gather information
  • The criteria for relevance may or may not be
    precise but are broad
  • Rosenfeld and Morville, Ch. 3

38
III. Working with the user
  • Holscher and Strubes model of information
    search behavior
  • Holscher, C. and Strube, G. (nd). Web Search
    Behavior of Internet Experts and Newbies
    http//www9.org/ w9cdrom/81/81.html

39
III. Working with the user
  • Information seeking as a process
  • It is a bounded series of one or more episodes
  • Integration using two or more components in a
    single episode
  • This allows comparison and expansion of the
    process
  • Iteration repeating the process in a single
    session by returning to areas of the site or
    resource
  • This can lead either to query expansion or
    contraction
  • How do people know when to stop?
  • Satisficing (Simon)

40
III. Working with the user
  • Another approach
  • Berry-picking (Bates, 1989) begins with a need
  • Formulate a query
  • Move iteratively through a system, gather
    information along the way, using available
    resources
  • The need and the query may change as you
    move
  • Chaining (pearl growing)
  • Start with information that is exactly right
  • Search for more like it
  • Search for sources it cites or that cite it

41
III. Working with the user
  • A model of steps in information seeking
  • Feldman, S. (2000). The Answer Machine. CRM
    http//www.infotoday.com/ searcher/jan00/feldma
    n.htm

42
III. Working with the user
  • Gathering user data
  • Usage statistics
  • Page information hits per page
  • Visitor information what domains and referral
    pages they come from
  • Search log analysis what terms are people using
  • Error logs where do they have problems
  • Customer/technical support data what kinds of
    problems are people having
  • Methods surveys, contextual inquiry, focus
    groups

43
III. Working with the user
  • Google analytics
  • http//blog.upupresults.com/wp-content/uploads/200
    7/05/google_analytics_dailyvisit.gif

44
III. Working with the user
  • A search log
  • http//www.gossamer-threads.com/images/glinks/scre
    enshots/search-log.jpg

45
III. Working with the user
  • An error log
  • http//www.devarticles.com/images/asplog_1.gif
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