Open your web browser and look at your current home page!
Imagine that the next time you open it, wherever you look at the screen you will only see information you find interesting and useful.
Remember, while there are many things that could be considered interesting and useful, not all of them should appear on your home page.By using images, charts and about 40% whitespace your page will look easier to understand and grasp at a glance.
In information sharing systems, particularly Intranets, the 3-click-rule must apply – whatever you need is never more than 3 clicks away!
In organisations that break the collaboration sites to departmental sites, the 2-click-rule should apply within the individual department pages.
What about personalisation?
Personalisation is a double edge sword, while most users would love to customise their pages to fit their needs, and while in theory that would achieve the purpose behind this point, in real life the results are usually very different.Creating custom areas on the page is one popular approach and providing capability for users to set up a personal site which has some pre-defined layouts that include information you wish to ensure is visible for all users is also common.
There is no right or wrong approach; there is just a level of effectiveness a collaboration platform can bring, as well as an incremental/revolutionary progression.
I recommend that you start off with a platform that is presented in a manner you can control and roll it out across departments or company-wide.
Later on you can empower some key users with various levels of personalisation for pilot purposes before you mass roll out such functionality.
What do you think???
