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When plans to invest in intranet portal technology were put on hold, the IKEA communication team in the US decided not to waste time waiting. Drawing on the IKEA values of innovation, functionality and cost efficiency, the team looked for ways to improve the online experience and develop more tailored information sites for different user groups. Beth Gleba and Luke Cavanagh describe how dashboards have helped achieved this.
Upgrading content, quality and usability on a budget
The IKEA intranet was launched in 1997. Since then it has gone through three major evolutions. Until 2001 it was at its most basic: housing useful information for co-workers. But content was fairly static, the structure was unclear and there was little scope for interactivity. Content was developed organically, which led to inconsistencies and publishers working in different ways.
In 2002, improvements were made. A better navigational structure was introduced, a new main page designed and publishing rules and guidelines updated. A companywide approach was adopted, with smaller sites being connected so they made more sense to users.
The third evolution has taken place since 2003 and can be referred to as our "pre-portal phase." The plan is to invest in portal technology1 as soon as our budget allows. In the meantime, we've improved the content, design and structure of the intranet simply by focusing on the user experience.
Analyzing user needs and objectives
In IKEA US alone, intranet content has jumped from 800 pages in 2001 to over 5,000 pages in 2004, with an estimated 30,000 pages published globally. But we had a gut feeling that content was expanding at such a fast rate that users couldn't keep up, and we knew there were regular complaints from co-workers unable to find specific content on the site.
In 2004, the main audience for the IKEA US intranet was our co-workers in the service office. But we needed to figure out how to also get information to the people working in the stores.
Focus groups confirmed that the site wasn't set up in a way that people working in retail think or work. All co-workers have access to global content such as world news, product and pipeline information, HR information, etc. But when we asked different user...