[Sigia-l] Are all employee web sites created equal?

[Jodi Bollaert]

Hi Siggies,

Gotta question.  Seems like a silly one, but I have to
doublecheck.  I have a client who recently told me
that he believes the high-level info arch for an
employee web site can pretty much be the same across
industries.

Now, my training and experience tell me this can't be
true.  While perhaps there's some overlap, I can't
believe there's a cookie-cutter info arch that can be
used universally.  Sure, maybe some similarities in
some cases, but can we really assume the same approach
would work everywhere?  This client's "employees"
happen to be temps.  I believe the employees' needs
will be unique to their industry, company and even
down to the user group level (e.g., clerical, legal,
engineering).  I'm thinking we should develop user
group profiles and recruit representatives from each
group for testing purposes.  This approach may,
however, require more testing than they can afford. 
If that's the case, should I push for testing with one
set of users that represent all user groups?  What do
you suggest are some effective ways to test the info
arch?  I tend to like developing paper prototypes, but
is that going too far?  I've done this in the past
because I think users have a hard time visualizing the
site's organization with just a flow chart.    

Your thoughts and experience are appreciated.  I'll be
happy to summarize for the list.

Jodi 

=====
Jodi Bollaert, Principal 
Blue Sun Works 
jodi at bluesunworks.com
248.310.6774