Business Intranet Redesign: Can High Usability Mediate Competitive Advantage?

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1 Business Intranet Redesign: Can High Usability Mediate Competitive Advantage? - Research in Progress - Thomas Acton (Corresponding Author) Dept of Accountancy & Finance National University of Ireland, Galway Direct Dial: Fax: thomas.acton@nuigalway.ie Murray Scott Centre for Innovation & Structural Change National University of Ireland, Galway Direct Dial: Fax: murray.scott@nuigalway.ie Jeremy Brown Dept of Accountancy & Finance National University of Ireland, Galway Direct Dial: Fax: jeremy.brown@nuigalway.ie Desmond Flanagan Hewlett-Packard Galway, Ireland Direct Dial: des.flanagan@hp.com Abstract Intranets are privately owned, organisationally-internal computing networks where access is only to authorised users. Modern intranet design derives from implementations of Web-enabled technologies, facilitating the existence of multiple websites and web pages, and capabilities such as , newsgroups, and online meeting facilities (Baker 2000; Curry and Stancich 2000, Denton 2003). As intranet implementations as enabling structures for internal electronic business communication continue to increase, academic research is needed to provide an insight into the factors affecting a successful intranet design (Tang 2000). Using a case study involving a large multinational IT organisation, this research (in progress) studies categorical changes made to the user interface design of that organisation s intranet, analyses how that intranet s usability has been affected by these changes, and investigates the perceived effects of such changes on operational and strategic goals. The 3-stage study incorporates a top-down managerial-focussed qualitative method with a bottom-up employee-based quantitative technique. The first two stages are qualitative, involving interviews with the 5 champion managers within the organisation who drove the organisation s intranet design changes at the managerial and strategic level: prior to the implementation of any alterations to the existing intranet the first set of interviews gathered data on why intranet design changes were sought, with the second set of interviews to be conducted 3 months after the changes were introduced, to explore whether the desired effects of the changes had been realised from a managerial perspective. Stage 1 is complete (February 2004), with stage 2 planned for May/June Stage 3 is quantitative, employing a web survey to gather that

2 organisation s employee end-user opinions on the design changes. This final stage will occur in parallel with stage 2 in May/June The central questions include a) What factors of an intranet s user interface design mediate its usability?, b) Do operational and strategic goals impact differently on intranet design?, and c) Do champion managers view benefits of intranet design changes differently from the organisation s end users? We hypothesise that individual and categorical design changes to the intranet will either positively or negatively affect its usability. However, any such effects may be interpreted and regarded differently from management and end-user perspectives. At an early stage of the research, this paper presents both a background on intranet design, its links to the design of web-based systems, and intranet-focussed usability issues. Additionally, this paper presents the overall structure of the study going forward. The overall aim of the study is to answer the questions a to c above, and to address the effects of design changes on intranet usability from both the managerial and employee end-user perspectives within a single large multinational organisation. Keywords Intranet, Usability, Redesign

3 1. INTRODUCTION Intranets are private computing networks, internal to an organisation, where access is only by authorised users. Because Intranets are for internal use within an organisation, they have a closed user base, with authorisation needed before access can be granted. Curry and Stancich (2000) classify Intranets into four groups. The first of these are informationpublishing applications, and are the type most commonly implemented by organisations. The second group is that of information collaboration applications, referring to web-enabled GroupWare and bulletin boards, which allow for collaboration along the external value chain, and can result in a reduction in project design errors, faster agreement on various issues that can arise, and faster time to market. The third group is transaction-oriented applications, facilitating online transactions. The fourth group includes formal collaboration applications, such as Lotus Notes. To maximise their potential, Intranets must not be allowed to evolve in an ad-hoc manner. Often, Intranet projects have been technology driven, being created for the sake of it (Tang 2000). A crossdepartmental approach opens up data resources, corporate processes, and knowledge applications to a wider base of users. As an organisation s Intranet evolves, it starts to focus on knowledge creation as well as knowledge storage and access (Baker 2000). Behavioural and structural changes in organisations work patterns will be needed in order to maximise this potential. The motivation to create, use and share information should be a primary, long-term critical success factor. IT personnel must collaborate on an ongoing basis with managers, and focus should be on work processes rather than work output (Rockard 1996). This top-down commitment must be accompanied by bottom-up employee buy-in. Using the Intranet should become part of the employee s daily routine, and should not constitute work (Tang 2000). Users must be given access to well-integrated well-designed information sources that are timely, up-to-date, maintainable and cost-effective. Intranets should provide fast and targeted access to relevant work- and organisational-related information so employees can stay focused on the connection between their work patterns and their company s strategic objectives. This promotes co-ordinated thinking and actions among employees, as well as maximising human resources (Denton 2003). Furthermore, for the Intranet to generate significant value-add, it must become the centrepiece of organisational strategy (Curry and Stancich 2000). In order to use the Intranet as a strategic tool, organisational management must take a strategic approach. Companies aiming to gain competitive advantage from Intranet activities must realise that technological solutions alone are not sufficient. Competitive advantage will come from the management of technology and effective use of resources (Gupta and Dale 1998). 2. INTRANETS AND USABILITY Whether an Intranet has been implemented as an operational tool or as a strategic vehicle, it must be designed to be usable by employees. Four main attributes of usability can be found in the literature: a product should be useful, easy to learn, easy to use and consistent (Gould and Lewis 1985; Palmer 2002). Authors such as Lecerof and Paterno (1998) and Juristo et al. (2001) extend this list of attributes to also include memorability and productivity. Intranets are closed systems but are derivations of web-based structures. Usability has been identified as a vitally important aspect of a web system (Juristo et al., 2001; Agarwal and Venkatesh, 2002; Lecerof and Paterno, 1998). 2.1 Measuring Usability Although usability in the broad sense cannot be measured, it is related to several usability factors that can (Nielsen and Levy 1994). But there are differences in opinion regarding the particular factors to use (Aladwani and Palvia 2002). Most authors include ease of use, learnability, number of errors made during tasks, and satisfaction as measures of usability (Nielsen 2001; Carroll et al. 2002; Juristo et al. 2001; Lecerof and Paterno 1998). Others extend these to also include efficiency and emotion (Kim and Moon 1998; Agarwal and Venkatesh 2002; Lindgaard and Dudek 2002). Davis (1989) takes a different viewpoint, maintaining that there has been widespread use of invalidated measures in terms of design, selection, implementation and evaluation. Both Davis (1989) and Adams et al. (1992) regard successful usability including measures of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Perceived usefulness is the extent to which a system will help people do their jobs. Perceived ease of use refers to the ease with which a user can use a system (Davis, 1989). Davis (1989) has shown that system usage

4 is determined primarily by its perceived usefulness, and secondarily by its ease of use, and advises not to put emphasis on ease of use at the cost of functionality. Many authors comment that usability factors can be classified under subjective user preferences and objective performance measures (Nielsen and Levy 1994; Agarwal and Venkatesh 2002; Kissel 1995). In the past, focus has primarily been on objective measures, such as learnability, number of errors, and time needed to complete tasks. Today, companies investing in online technologies need to see the benefits of their investments, and to make this possible an appropriate tool for measuring the quality of their underlying systems must be identified (Aladwani and Palvia 2002). 3. RESEARCH DESIGN Using a case study involving a large multinational IT organisation, this research studies user interface changes made to the design of that organisation s intranet, analyses how that intranet s usability has been affected by these changes, and investigates the perceived effects of these changes on business processes and goals. The 3-stage study incorporates a top-down managerial-focussed qualitative method with a bottom-up employee-based quantitative technique. The first two stages are qualitative, involving interviews with the 5 champion managers within the organisation who drove intranet design changes from the top-level downwards: prior to the implementation of any alterations to the existing intranet the first set of interviews gathered data on why intranet design changes were sought, with the second set of interviews to be conducted 3 months after the changes were introduced, to explore whether the desired effects of the changes had been realised from a managerial perspective. Stage 1 is complete (February 2004), with stage 2 planned for May/June The third stage is quantitative, employing a web survey to gather that organisation s employee end-user opinions on the design changes. This final stage is planned to occur in parallel with stage 2 in May/June Available Methods Although recommended in information systems research, qualitative methods have not been as visible as other quantitative methods such as laboratory testing and surveys. This latter category provides the researcher with static, independent and objective data rather than dynamic, interacting data associated with qualitative research (Kaplan and Duchon 1988; Silverman 1998). According to Kaplan and Duchon (1988), there have been many different opinions expressed within I.S. research as to whether qualitative or quantitative methods are best. Advocates of the qualitative approach state that the ideal situation is to carry out action-centered, interdisciplinary, participatory research to allow hypotheses and research questions evolve as new developments appear. This should then yield rich data and promote validity (Kaplan and Duchon 1988; Hallahan 2001). Qualitative research may be used in an exploratory manner before more defining research begins, involving quantitative research and testing a number of hypotheses against experiments or statistical techniques. This multi-method approach allows for a wider range of coverage and increases the robustness of results because of the use of a crossvalidation technique called triangulation. Triangulation helps minimize potential testing errors and chances of erroneous conclusions (Hallahan 2001). For this study, interviews and in particular telephone interviews are the chosen qualitative methods for stages 1 and 2, while a quantitative web survey has been chosen for stage 3. The purpose of each stage of the research is presented in table 1 below. Research Stage Sample Purpose of each Stage First set of interviews To identify the drivers behind the changes made with 5 manager to the intranet redesign Stage 1 champions of intranet Feb 2004 Investigate the intended usability effects of design changes defined categorical aspects to the intranet redesign Stage 2 May/June 2004 Revisit each manager s evaluation of the intended purposes of categorical design changes after a 3 Second set of month period of the redesigned intranet s interviews with 5 implementation manager champions of Compare this evaluation to the expectations they intranet design changes had for the design changes at the first set of interviews. Web survey, completed Gather data from employee end-users regarding

5 Stage 3 May/June 2004 by >30 employees their opinions on the usability of the intranet following the design changes Compare employee viewpoints (as end-users) to management intentions and views Table 1: Research Plan 4. CONCLUSION This research aims to study the changes made to the design of an organisation s intranet, and analyse how the intranet s usability has been affected by these changes. To be completed through the use of a pluralistic methodology involving interviews in conjunction with an online survey, the 3-stage study incorporates a top-down managerial-focussed qualitative method with a bottom-up employee-based quantitative approach. This paper outlines a number of research approaches and methods suited to this study, and presents structured interviews and a web survey as being most appropriate. The central questions to be addressed are: a) What factors of an intranet s design mediate its usability? The research aims to approach this from both the managerial and the employee perspectives b) Do operational and strategic goals impact differently on intranet design? The research aims to investigate the relationship, if any, between operational and strategic goals on the effects of design changes on the intranet s usability c) Do champion managers view benefits of interface design changes differently from the organisation s end users? The research aims to compare the viewpoints of managers and end-user employees on usability concerns for intranet design BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, D. A., Nelson, R. R. and Todd, P. A. (1992) Perceived usefulness, ease of use, and usage of information technology: A replication, MIS Quarterly, 16 (2), pp Aladwani, A. M. and Palvia, P.C. (2002) Developing and Validating an Instrument for Measuring User-Perceived Web Quality, Information and Management, 39, pp Agarwal, R. and Venkatesh, V. (2002) Assessing a Firm's Web Presence: A Heuristic Evaluation Procedure for the Measurement of Usability, Information Systems Research, 13 (2), pp Baker, S. (2000) Getting the most from your Intranet and extranet strategies., Journal of Business Strategy, 21, pp. 40. Carroll, C., Marsden, P., Soden, P., Naylor, E., New, J. and Dornan, T. (2002) Involving users in the design and usability evaluation of a clinical decision support system, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 69 (2), pp Curry, A. and Stancich, L. (2000) The intranet - an intrinsic component of strategic information management., International Journal of Information Management, 20, pp Davis, F. D. (1989) Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology, MIS Quarterly, September, pp Denton, D. K. (2003) Use an Intranet for Performance Measurement., Industrial Management, 45, p. 28.

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