The intranet site designed by you ...

Center News

Designed with staff and faculty input, CenterNet will ease access to Center News, resources and more

Photo By Ignacio Lobos From left, the innovative Internet Services team of Kristin Pittman, Web producer; Sean Downing, Web developer; Laura Haroldson, senior manager; Lisa Donohue, Web designer; and Suna Gurol, Web producer. Not pictured: Kathleen Mulhern, Web producer; and Charlotte Swanson, Web production associate.

If you haven't seen the fliers around campus, you'll definitely notice a change the next time you log onto the intranet, which has transformed into the new CenterNet. This change marks the culmination of a two-year effort to overhaul the existing intranet into a more user-friendly and workable tool.

Although Internet Services has been responsible for the details of making it all happen, the ultimate authority directing the changes you'll find in CenterNet has come from people of every job description in every division across the Center, so chances are good that someone you know had a say.

"This wasn't just a small group of people in Internet Services sitting in their offices thinking this would be a great thing to do. We solicited a lot feedback and ideas and talked to a lot of people to find out what was important to them," said Laura Haroldson, senior manager of Internet Services. "Our charge from Myra Tanita from the beginning has been to make this site useful to people, to assist them in getting their jobs done faster, and to create a place that unites the community within the Center."

To do that, the Internet Services team started with interviews. The team worked with Human Resources to pull job classifications from every division and selected a cross section of people to talk to.

Usability studies

"We showed up with a list of questions about how people work, what kinds of things they look for online, what news publications they read, and asked how often they read Center News to get an idea of how we should approach this project," said Kathleen Mulhern, a Web producer in Internet Services.

Next, the team enlisted others to participate in usability studies, which included card-sorting activities to determine the most intuitive way to categorize information. "We already had their words, now we wanted their actions," said Mulhern, who was in charge of the usability aspect. "We based the information architecture of the site on those activities. Once we had that, we designed diagrams of how information would be organized and asked more people to look them over to make sure the design functioned. We based the design and structure on the people we spoke to and how they actually worked. That's been our goal, to create something task-based that aided people in their work."

Two-way communications goal

While CenterNet launched Sept. 27, it's still evolving. Internet Services is soliciting feedback about the project. Many pages have feedback buttons to let the team know what you're thinking. They will be checking their e-mail account, webadm@fhcrc.org, for your comments, questions and suggestions.

"The idea of two-way communication is essential to the underlying goal. This is a tool for users, and we want to hear their feedback," Haroldson said. In coming months, Haroldson will be joining meetings to discuss some of the new features and soliciting further collaboration. "This is not just an Internet Services project. It's really a Center project, and everyone has pitched in to make this successful. We're hoping that continues."

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