[Sigia-l] intranet ROI musings

[Listera]

"Eric Scheid" wrote:

> I was thinking more along the lines of ad hoc expenses, as typically claimed
> by managers or sales people out and about schmoozing. Theoretically, that
> 50c they drop into a parking meter is a claimable expense ... which for
> practical purposes they never bother claiming due to the hassle. Reduce the
> hassle and it gets claimed.

I'm having a difficult time understanding this. An expense can either be
legally claimed or not. Between the company accountant and the IRS, there's
not much you can do about it, as an IA.

An unclaimed expense can be thought of as a subsidy or a loan without
interest by the employee to the employer. That's an inherently unjust
situation, not anything like a "business to rip off people." If anything the
company is ripping off the employee.

In any case, your argument is that a substandard system for submitting
expenses artificially masked this situation and a better designed system
would make the submission process more efficient. And the result would be
more submissions. This sure is turning usability/IA on its head!

By that logic, we should design really crappy online systems for help,
contact, rebates, tech support, etc. God forbid they might increase
submissions and cause a company to go belly up.

You don't really believe that do you?

Best,

Ziya