20.1. Challenges for the User Like Microsoft itself, MSWeb is insanely huge and distributed. Let's use some numbers to paint a picture of the situation. MSWeb contains: 3,100,000+ pages Content created by and for over 50,000 employees who work in 74 countries 8,000+ separate intranet sites
With apologies to Herbert Hoover, Microsoft has put a web server in practically every employee's pot. Employees, in turn, have responded by embracing the technology (as you'd expect from one of the world's largest technology companies), and by churning out an impossibly huge volume of content. But if you're a typical Microsoft employee, these numbers also represent a bit of a problem. Microsoft estimates that a typical employee spends 2.31 hours per day engaging with information, and 50 percent of that time is used looking for that information. Although you already know how ambivalent we are about using such calculations to estimate actual costs to the organization, we think these numbers show that at least some valuable employee time is being wasted flailing about in this huge environment in search of information. Here are just a few examples of how this chaotic environment hurts Microsoft employees.
Where to begin? -
This is your typical case of "silo hell." With as many as 8,000 possibilities available, employees have a hard time determining where they should begin looking for the information they need. While some starting points are obviouscheck the human resources site for information on your medical insurance or 401K planother areas, such as technical information, are scattered throughout Microsoft's intranet environment.
Inconsistent navigation systems -
Navigation systems are quite inconsistent because they employ many different labeling schemes. Therefore, users are confused each time they encounter a new one. Not only does this inhibit navigation, it also muddles the user's sense of place.
Same concept, different labels -
Because different labels are used for the same concepts, users miss out on important information when they don't search or browse for all the possible labels for those concepts. For example, users may search for "Windows 2000" without realizing that they also need to hunt for "Microsoft Windows 2000," "Windows 2000," "Win 2000," "Win2000," "Win2k," "Win 2k," and "w2k."
Different concepts, same label -
Conversely, a term doesn't always mean what you think it does. For example, ASP can mean "active server pages," "application service providers," or "actual selling price." And the term "Merlin" has been used as the code name for three very different products.
Ignorance is not bliss -
Often, users are happy when they get any relevant information. But in a knowledge-intensive environment like Microsoft's, users are much more demandingtheir jobs depend on finding the best information possible. In this case, employees often get frustrated because they don't know when to stop searching. Is the content simply not there? Or is a server down somewhere? Or maybe they didn't enter a good search query? It's not hard to see how a typical employee's 1.155 hours per day might get burned up. In short, Microsoft employees face an expansive and confusing information environment that's about as intimidating as the Web itself. |
