A focus on usability is key to successful intranet and extranet portals.  To accomplish any purpose, portals must provide an efficient environment for job performance.  Well-known and documented usability principles, such as learnability, proficiency, predictability, utility and satisfaction are critical to meeting intranet and extranet objectives.

Displaying information in a usable manner is only part of the story.  Historically, the goal of intranets was to spare users from having to go to multiple locations to satisfy their information needs, and the goal of extranets was to provide clients with status information and a glimpse into specific work products.  Technology now allows the abstracting of all information relating to a topic to be searched and displayed in one place, providing individuals the opportunity to turn information into knowledge, a well-known adage.  Almost every information source has become more complex as software vendors strive to meet more demanding requirements, and custom-built applications continue to abound in most firms.  External news and information sources add an entire layer of complexity to searching and displaying all information on a single topic.

Today, satisfying information needs within intranets most often demonstrates itself as client-centric, matter-centric and other "-centric" models relying mostly on tedious mapping and taxonomy exercises.  Many times these exercises add to, rather than reduce, the burden on administrative and professional users.  Most enterprise search capabilities fall far short of providing a truly usable experience.  Extranets struggle with providing consistent branding while being customized for each client and meeting ever-increasing demands for more information and communication.  Extranets must balance the usability needs of both clients and internal users.

Having all the information from multiple sources in one spot relating to a single client or matter can be a technological masterpiece and increase usability.  But is it enough to truly increase efficiency, reduce duplication of effort or build stronger client relationships?  In most cases, probably not.

As for extranets, it is more common now than ever for extranets to be customized for each client.  Today's extranets provide faster, more complete access to client information, and many include tools for communicating and collaborating with the firm.  While succeeding in some areas, most extranets decrease internal efficiency by requiring duplication of effort and introducing processes that increase the burden on professionals to learn and operate in different environments for each client that also differ from the firm's intranet environment.  Although many extranets contribute to building stronger relationships, most fail to do so with the efficiency or timeliness needed to provide this service to a greater number of clients.  The administrative burden of creating and maintaining client extranets is usually cumbersome at best.  Many also lack the level of functionality and services that clients would like.

The reasons many intranet and extranet portals have failed to live up to expectations are two-fold.  First, well-documented standards for user interface design are an afterthought.  The emphasis is on the ability to display information from multiple sources rather than on the use of information.  Second, users are significantly disadvantaged when they cannot act on, or perform tasks with, the displayed information.

To affect the bottom line in a tangible way, portals must focus on users - how they can most effectively search and find the information they need and how they can most effectively use this information.  This is easier said than done when enabling technologies are often difficult to implement, time-consuming to configure or change, and rely on a select group of individuals with significant technical skills.

The Portal Platform
The options available to ensure usability in portals differ by platform.  Most provide capability for customization, but few take notice of usability.  Portal platforms fall into three general categories:  those developed for a specific type of business, those offered by software vendors whose primary focus is in a line-of-business system and those that provide the features and functionality required by any organization.

Platforms developed for a specific business are more accurately characterized as applications, providing functionality for the common activities of the type of the business.  While they provide highly-specialized functionality, these platforms are generally not able to handle the robust requirements needed to have a measurable effect.  Customizing and developing on these platforms requires knowledge of the proprietary software.

Many times, software vendors include portals with their products.  Unfortunately, these solutions approach a portal as a platform primarily to deliver their product's services.  This is inherently flawed because, by definition, a portal should be designed around how all information sources are used, not from the point of view of a system that manages documents or one that manages contacts.  Customizing and developing on these platforms also requires knowledge of the proprietary software.

Of the platforms designed specifically to provide portal features and functions, SharePoint is, by far, the most cost-effective, robust and flexible platform for building successful intranet and extranet portals.  So effective, in fact, that it is the fastest-selling product in Microsoft's history and explains why Microsoft is making it foundational to their Office 2007 platform.

Out of the box, SharePoint is not an intranet or extranet solution for a law firm.  As a platform for building upon, however, it provides a quickly deployable, scalable, customizable and easily extended environment.  The environment supports building comprehensive applications and enterprise search capabilities that maintain usability while delivering information and functionality from multiple sources in a single location.

Principles of Usability
Successful, user-focused portals maintain usability standards in the interface and provide the tools required by internal users and clients to be more effective and efficient in their daily tasks.  Platforms are chosen for as many reasons as there are firms, but the focus on usability required to impact the bottom line is the same regardless of platform.  To build long-lasting relationships with a greater number of clients, portals must have real impact on efficiency, timeliness and quality.

Usability principles, proven over time and supported by research and analysis, usually take a back seat to technical challenges.  This is particularly true with portal environments where it can be difficult to bring information together from multiple sources and incorporate effective searching.

Large companies have been known to devote hefty budgets to ensure usability.  Small productivity increases can have a profound yearly effect on their bottom line when multiplied by tens of thousands of employees.  But increasing usability does not have to be costly.  And while increased productivity can directly reduce costs in any size firm, the real value comes by providing better service to clients and by sustaining that service for additional clients with the same resources.

The principles of learnability, proficiency and predictability refer to the ease users have in understanding what they see, finding what they need and performing necessary tasks.  These principles are realized through consistency, commonly used controls, navigation and search.  Utility refers to functionality:  Does it do what users need?  It doesn't matter if something is easy to do if it's not what a user wants.  Conversely, it has little value if a user can hypothetically do what he or she wants but has significant difficulty doing it.  Satisfaction refers to users' interaction with the portal.  It is no less important for internal users to have an agreeable experience on an intranet than it is for clients to have a pleasing experience on an extranet.

Portal technology has evolved from being a vehicle for firm communications to providing the ability to build full-functioning applications presenting information from multiple sources inside and outside the firm, while delivering functionality required by users to complete their tasks.  More advanced uses of technology even allow multiple sources of information to interact with each other.  To positively affect the bottom line, the current generation of portals must increase efficiency, timeliness and quality.

The impact that usability has on efficiency is documented in many research studies.  Reducing the amount of time to find information and perform even simple tasks can have bottom-line results in a relatively short period of time.  With today's technology that supports enterprise searching and delivery of functionality along with information, the impact on efficiency can be astounding.  High usability frees professionals to spend more time on high-value, billable activities supported by a more efficient administrative staff that can handle more clients with the same resources.

Timeliness can be the hallmark of good client relationships.  Not just in the delivery of work product, but timeliness of communications, access to information and up-to-date content.  Intranets have come a long way in distributing the ability to add content, particularly with real-time integration of multiple systems that provide up-to-the-second information and the incorporation of information from external news and information sources, historically called publishing.  A usable intranet allows users to easily contribute content without changing how they work.  Content managers, responsible for keeping specific content areas up to date, are particularly affected when usability is low.  Information quickly becomes stale when users have to jump through multiple hoops to add or update information.

Often overlooked but critical in portal usability is the ability to respond quickly to requests by users, particularly legal professionals and clients, for additional information and functionality.  The most effective portals make this a simple, quick process and distribute the responsibility outside the technology department.

Finally, maintaining usability impacts quality.  Quality, defined here as accuracy and completeness, is enhanced when users have quick and easy access to all the information available while allowing highly specialized line-of-business systems to manage the content.  Using a familiar, consistent and easy-to-use interface to deliver information and functionality supports higher quality work in all areas of a firm.  Extending information and targeted functionality to clients sustains communication and collaboration to successfully build long-term client relationships.

Make It Easy
Intranet and extranet portals can have a demonstrable impact on productivity and client service.  Focusing on users by maintaining usability standards increases efficiency, timeliness and quality.  Regardless of the platform, when the usability principles of learnability, proficiency, predictability, utility and satisfaction are not rigorously applied, portals will be difficult to use and will not have the desired results.  Effective use of technology will present all information sources in a single location at the fingertips of both internal and external users and provide the functionality to support truly efficient, timely and quality work performance.

About our author . . .

Jeff Wolf is Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for XMLAW, a technology company providing SharePoint-based intranets and extranets to the legal industry. Jeff has more than 12 years of experience designing and implementing software systems and has worked in the legal industry for the past seven years.  Jeff can be reached at jwolf@xmlaw.net.