[Sigia-l] The 3 Factors of I/A

[Jeff Lash]

> On the web, however, (and on these mailing lists) i've seen a lot of
> examples and disscusion about grouping based on Content Similarity and not
> much based on grouping by User Task and I wondered if anyone else was
> doing some User Task driven work?

On one Intranet I worked on, the HR section was grouped by subject matter as
well as by task.

For example, there was a "Benefits" section where you could find out about
all the different benefits -- health care, retirement plan, etc -- and there
was also a "Compensation" section where you could access pay grades and
salary information.

In addition to the grouping based on subject matter, there was a
task-oriented section where you could accomplish all of your "self-service"
HR functions, like changing your emergency contact information, tax
withholding, etc. From here you could also access things that were in
Benefits -- change your retirement fund allocations, print off your pay
stub, sign up for an online class.

The task-based section was a big success. Not only did it make it easier for
employees who knew what task they were trying to accomplish (since they
didn't have to guess what section it was in), but it took a big burden off
the HR department by moving these "self-service" functions online rather
than being done on paper.

There are many sites that have "form libraries." These allow users to locate
the proper form (HTML, PDF, request a copy via mail) they need to accomplish
a task, and usually the forms are grouped by task (i.e. all of the forms for
opening an account in one section, all of the forms for modifying an account
in another).

I'm sure there are other examples of successful task-based implementations
but these were the first two that came to mind.

Jeff