It’s too bad that a bank in so much trouble had this as a success story, but here it is: Pete Fields, an eBusiness Director, explains how Wachovia used MOSS to build a social network called Pulse so employees could collaborate, and more importantly, the information was stored so future employees (if there is a future for them) could access the system to view that collective knowledge.
The irony is that I saw the system, and what I like most about their approach was how they attached a return on investment to the project, and the project received its funding through reduction of travel budgets. The establishes a very real value and the users know they have to use the system to replace other methods of communication.
And it worked, as their statistics showed. It’s too bad they couldn’t have had a few years to let the experiment grow.
Kotego, a blog in the same category as mine on Alltop, has a great article that reminds us that work shouldn’t be our lives (even though it seems like it’s all encompasing, even in these times). Number 8 on the list, “More work hours does not equal more productivity,” so true.
The article is entitled 12 Tips On Improving Work, Life And The Work-Life Balance.
One of the clients I work with is in Alaska (which prompts all kinds of comments like, “do you run into moose on the way to work”). Where I’m at here, it’s just like any other town in America. They have a Wal-Mart, a Best Buy, an Applebees, and a TGI Fridays, which means you can get chain food just about anywhere in the world.
For the most part, though, the broadband connections aren’t.
Using my Verizon Wireless card on the computer sends me back into dial-up time, and worknig with this client, we’ve estimated that we have to act like the site’s designed in 1998 from a page weight perspective to make it acceptable for end users, because most of them are on ISDN-level DSL.
So why does this conversation matter?
Even if they are using 3G for their iPhone, consider the end device or end connection speed. Of course if you are in a business environment, you’ll get more leilency over that issue, but for public websites, you don’t know where the users will be coming from. There’s a certain group of the user base that will never move off of dial-up (I’ve heard the quote, “you know what, it’s fast enough for me”), and you should design your pages as such.
Major League Baseball’s site does just that — they have a narrowband and broadband version. I had never seen the narrowband version because my connection at home is smokin’ fast, but here, it was a great substitute to downloading HD Video.
You don’t have to design your site like Craigs List, but do consider how much weight is on the page.
Patrick Neeman is Director of User Experience at Jobvite, a social recruiting platform and runs both the UX Drinking Game and Startup Drinking Game | More | Contact