a feature guide to qut's digital workplace (intranets2016)

D I V I S I O N O F T E C H N O L O G Y , I N F O R M A T I O N A N D L E A R N I N G S U P P O R T

A feature guide to

QUT’s Digital Workplace

Andy McBrideUser Experience Designer

[email protected]

CRICOSNo.00213J

A little background

About Queensland University of Technology

Our campuses• Gardens Point• Kelvin Grove• Caboolture

Our people• Over 47,000 student enrolments• Almost 13,000 staff• 227,000 Alumni

Our key interests• Learning and teaching• Research

Many audiences and needs

Audiences

Academics

Sessionalacademics

Professionalstaff

ResearchersPhDstudents

Students

Visitors

Needs

Fulltimevs

Parttime

Oncampusvs

Offcampus

Desk-basedvs

Mobile

DigitalNativesvs.Digital

Immigrants

About our team

Project Manager

Senior Portal Administrator

User Experience Designer

Portal Administrator

Senior Analyst

ProgrammerAnalyst

ProgrammerAnalyst

Programmer

Content Support

Coordinator

Content Support Officer

Content Support Officer

Business Analyst

Web Search & Statistics Specialist

plus access to Test, DBA and Integration teams

Situated within the IT Department

About our work

DigitalWorkplace

QUTVirtual'Makeawish

foundation'

Students&Alumni

Staff&PhDStudents

Variousaudiences

A long road to where we are now

• Called Data warehouse

1999

• Released QUT Virtual

• Oracle Portal

2002

• Major updates to staff and student interfaces

2006

• Introduced mobile web-based application

2008

• Moved to Looking Glass portal

2013

• Released Digital Workplace

• Introduced responsive design

2015

A critical tool for the universityEntry point for

120+ corporate systems &

applications

12.5+ millionunique sessionsin the last year

1+ millionapplication launches from LaunchPad in the last year

70+applications hosted within

Digital Workplace

22+ millionunique page views

in the last year

Has been accessed from

180+countries

2000+pages of web content

1.5+ millionunique searches in the last year

18%visitors via

mobile device

Yo! We’ll solve it!You got a problem?

“There is too much duplication. Which one is the official policy?”

Mary Manager

Problem 1:

Problem 1: Duplicated web content

• Many attempts at isolated one-stop shops

• Duplicated QUT-wide content with local flavour on top

• Result:– Source of truth no longer

clear– Enterprise wide search

impossible

Problem 1: Duplicated web content example

FinanceDept.purchasingpolicyFacultyofLawpurchasingpolicyScienceandEngineeringFacultypurchasingpolicy

InstituteofHealthandBiomedicalInnovationpurchasingpolicy

QUTBusinessSchoolpurchasingpolicy

Our solution: Global and local content, one page

• Reduced content duplication by over 85% (17,000 pages to 2,000 pages)

Globalcontent

Localcontent

Samepage


• Global content:– Appears in white box at top– QUT-wide audience

• Local content:– Appears in blue box– Local audience, shown based

on users role (e.g Caboolturestaff)


• Content authoring community uses Web Content Dashboard to manage:– Pages– Content– Resources

(images, documents)– Communities– Reporting


• Key benefits:– Content can be reused across multiple pages and communities– Content updated once, published globally– Maintains flexibility of a distributed content authoring

community but the control of a centralised content authoring community

– Tailored experience for our users

“I can’t find anything! Why can’t it be just like Google?”

Sally Searcher

Problem 2:

Problem 2: Searching silos

• Each website had individual content search

• Also several application searches (eg. people search, book search)

• Staff used Google as it would search everything

Our solution: One search for all content and applications

• One search for: – Content (all sites)– People (staff and students)– Learning data (units, classes)– Applications

• Simple, easy to use user interface

180,000+unique staffsearchessinceMarch2016

6,000+unique studentsearchessincelastSunday


Content


Staff


Applications


• User can refine their search by:– Website– Section within Digital

workplace– Collaboration space– Org area– …and more


• User can customise their search experience

• Preferences include:– Default search type– Number of results

displayed– Hide contact number


• Added ‘Google like’ features • Features include:

– Previous searches– Type ahead prediction– Spelling correction


• Added a feature tour to guide users through new search features

• User only sees once and can end at any time


• Future ideas:– Acronym definer (Done!)– Key dates context menu

(Almost done!)– Comprehensive search

analytics engine (to help us tune results) (in progress)

– ‘Search as a service’

“I want to be able to access all of my apps from the Digital Workplace.”

Terry Techhead

Problem 3:

Problem 3: Organising the appnado™

• Over 450 apps at QUT• Some within Digital Workplace,

most outside• Staff found difficult:

– Knowing which apps were available

– How to request access and support

– Maintaining easy access to their apps

Our solution: LaunchPad and Application Directory

Application DirectoryLaunchPad

Our solution: LaunchPad

• Accessible from every page

• Staff (and students) can:– Create their own web

shortcut; or– Add an app from the

Application Directory100,000+

timesapplicationsaddedtoLaunchPadsinceMay2015

100,000+timesapplications

launchedviaLaunchPad bystudents

sincelastSunday

Our solution: LaunchPad

• Fully customiseable

• Staff (and students) can:– Delete apps– Manage order of apps– Decide how shortcuts are

opened– Restore default set of apps

Our solution: Application Directory

• Catalogue of all web applicationsavailable at QUT

• Each application has:– Title– Description– Icon– Category– Shortcut– Support contacts; and– Training & manuals

Our solution: LaunchPad and Application Directory

• Future ideas:– App outage alerts– App folders– ‘LaunchPad as a service’

“Why is it so hard to provide feedback?”

Freddie Feedback

Problem 4:

Problem 4: Giving feedback was hard

• Many feedback channels• No consistent place for user to

give feedback• Managing and reporting on

feedback was difficult

Our solution: Smart feedback button

• One simple, easy way to provide feedback

• Feedback button on every page

900+unique piecesoffeedbacksinceMay2015


• User can select:– page; or – relevant content section

and provide comments


• On content pages:– Feedback sent to

corresponding content coordinator to action

• Within applications:– Feedback sent via Jira to

corresponding technical area to action

Implement governance (from the start)

• Absence of a decision-making body = – difficult to prioritise development

requests (eg. area with loudest voice wins)

– difficult to maintain level of standards and quality

Don’t rely on written communication

• Don’t rely on staff reading project comms, no matter how well written– Visual comms better than written (eg. videos, infographics)

• Make IT Helpdesk aware of technical changes, they can help get message out.

• Rely on local champions and word of mouth to get the message out

Engage early and often

• More you engage with your users the better

• Can be as formal or informal • Take them along on the design

journey, helps break down walls between IT and staff

• We created Staff and Student Reference Groups– They can also act as your

project champions

Web stats are your friend

• We have stats on almost everything:– Page views– Link clicks– Audiences– Technology– Searches

• Solid evidence of how your intranet is used and by whom will help in difficult situations– Eg. “My content is important,

put it on the homepage”

+In-housebuiltanalyticsengines

Questions

Want more information?

Andy McBrideUser Experience [email protected]

a feature guide to qut's digital workplace (intranets2016)

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