[Sigia-l] intranet ROI musings

[Eric Scheid]

On 19/11/02 11:47 AM, "Listera" <listera at rcn.com> wrote:
> 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?

The payoff for better systems, despite the increased costs, would be the
morale boost. Effectively your sales/management people are better paid.

As to developing crappy systems ... why do you think phone-tree systems are
so damn popular, replacing personalised service?

It's a fact of human nature that an increase in capacity to supply is
usually matched by an increase in consumption - which is why building more
roads and highways will usually result in simply more traffic, not less
congestion. It's not really in the purview of an IA to handle these
questions, as you say, though that doesn't mean the IA should just climb
down into his private silo and remain blissfully ignorant.

> 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.

Unless the business has prior to this compensated for this by increasing
salaries or providing a miscellaneous expense allowance. In which case the
employees are double-dipping, an unjust action.

This is getting off-topic for IA. I'd wrap by saying that an IA should
probably at least be cognizant of the possible knock-on effects, aware that
what they develop doesn't exist in a vacuum, and should at least alert the
client to same if it is apparent it hasn't occurred to them. Whether they go
ahead or not is up to them.

As an independent/freelance IA, it's the least I do, even if sometimes my
only motivation is to avoid getting blamed by the client for these
unintended consequences of their incomplete planning.

e.