Section 19.2. What s the Goal of EIA?

19.2. What's the Goal of EIA?

We haven't yet encountered an enterprise site that didn't suffer from problems associated with decentralization. Put another way, it's the rare site that is too centralized. Now that the Web's novelty has started to wear off, and web sites are recognized as a foundational component of doing business in the 21st century, many early sources of resistance to centralization are wearing down. Business units are beginning to understand the benefits of shared resources and coherent user experience, for their sites' users as much as for their own bottom lines.

19.2.1. Getting Everyone on the Same Page

But it's still not clear to everyone why some measure of centralization is worth pursuing. So the following list of benefits of centralization might come in handy:

Increased revenues

Especially in e-commerce situations, customers don't want to be exposed to the enterprise's org chart as they try to navigate the site. They want to make a purchase and go on with their lives. A centralized information architecture will help users focus on their needs, not your organization's politics and structure.

Reduced costs

Centralization helps the enterprise save money in so many ways. One is that you can avoid purchasing multiple and redundant licenses for such technologies as search engines, and can instead collectively negotiate for a single enterprise-wide license. Another is that pooling resources may allow the enterprise to afford the development of customized tools (or customization of shrink-wrapped tools) and specialized staff. Yet another is that duplication of effort, such as having two research teams working on the same project, can be eliminated. And, of course, reducing the time needed to find information can really add up when that time is paid for by the enterprise.

Clearer communication

Whether they're employees who access the intranet or investors wondering about new acquisitions, all users can expect a consistent and accurate message on behalf of the enterprise if centralization is in place.

Shared expertise

Centralization implies that there is some means for cooperating and reaching decisions as a group. Besides indicating an organization with a healthy attitude toward communicating and sharing knowledge in a general sense, it also means that the organization is collectively learning about information architecture and other areas that will help "glue" together content from its disparate silos. Which, of course, can only be a good thing.

Reduced likelihood of corporate reorganization

Perhaps it's a stretch, but if poor communication and coordination are major causes of corporate reorganizations, then having a strong centralized information architecture will reduce the need for reorgs. Reorgs are often the most painful and expensive event that organizations face, so anything that reduces their likelihood should be considered valuable.

Centralization is inevitable anyway

Most enterprises have already begun the process of centralizing their information architectures, consciously or not. Why not acknowledge this reality, tap it, and if possible, shape, hasten, and direct it with a conscious, intelligent strategy?

19.2.2. Centralization Above All?

Considering all those good outcomes, it's tempting to consider centralization as the ultimate goal of enterprise IA (which, admittedly, we did in this book's second edition). It does sound like a nice way to deal with the problematic intranet described in the example above. Just design an information architecture that knits together all units' content silos in a rational, usable way, and then implement across the organization.

This kind of thinking is common in many enterprises. And anyone who's been through such an exercise knows just how difficult it is to force business units to comply with common standards. It's not completely impossiblefor example, IBM.com's pages now all use standard templates, which is quite an impressive achievement considering the size of the site and diversity of its numerous ownersbut many aspects of a centralized IA are more difficult to understand and, therefore, to comply with. For example, while common page templates are a tangible aspect of the user experience, the more abstract concepts, like shared metadata, are not quickly grasped much less adoptedby many enterprise decision-makers.

19.2.3. So What Is the Goal?

The goal of enterprise IA is not to centralize everything you see. In fact, the goal of EIA is no different than any other flavor of IA: identify the few most efficient means of connecting users with the information they need most. That often might involve adopting some centralizing measures, but it could also mean a highly decentralized approach, such as enabling employees to use a social bookmarking tool to tag intranet content (as the aforementioned IBM is doing). The point, as always, is to apply whatever approach makes the most sense given your organization, its users, content, and context.

Naturally, this is a more thoughtful approach than simply seeking to centralize the information architecture; put another way, it's more work. But don't dismay: patterns are emerging to describe common enterprise IA challenges and solutions. In the remainder of this chapter, we'll describe how an EIA typically evolves in terms of design, strategy, and operations, and how you can have a positive impact in each case.