The digital workplace is an emerging concept, and universities are complex places. Over the past 10 years QUT have been on a journey of continuous improvement covering staff and student intranets, mobile and most recently transforming four searches into one. This presentation will highlight some key features of QUT’s new digital workplace: - a unique presentation of global vs. local content that helped reduce content duplication by over 85% - meeting varied user needs with their LaunchPad and Application Directory - making search work (in just three months) Conference: Intranets 2016 Presenter: Andy McBride Copyright QUT 2016.

1. D I V I S I O N O F T E C H N O L O G Y , I N F O R M A T I O N A N D L E A R N I N G S U P P O R T
A feature guide to
QUT’s Digital Workplace
Andy McBride
User Experience Designer
a.mcbride@qut.edu.au
CRICOS No. 00213J

2. A little background

3. About Queensland University of Technology
Our campuses
• Gardens Point
• Kelvin Grove
• Caboolture
Our people
• Over 47,000 student enrolments
• Almost 13,000 staff
• 227,000 Alumni
Our key interests
• Learning and teaching
• Research

4. Many audiences and needs
Audiences
Academics
Sessional
academics
Professional
staff
Researchers
PhD
students
Students
Visitors
Needs
Full time
vs
Part time
On campus
vs
Off campus
Desk-based
vs
Mobile
Digital
Natives vs.
Digital
Immigrants

5. About our team
Project
Manager
Senior Portal
Administrator
User
Experience
Designer
Portal
Administrator
Senior
Analyst
Programmer
Analyst
Programmer
Analyst
Programmer
Content
Support
Coordinator
Content
Support
Officer
Content
Support
Officer
Business
Analyst
Web Search
& Statistics
Specialist
plus access to Test, DBA and Integration teams
Situated within the
IT Department

6. About our work
Digital
Workplace
QUT Virtual
'Make a
wish
foundation'
Students &
Alumni
Staff & PhD
Students
Various
audiences

9. A long road to where we are now
• Called
Data
warehouse
1999
• Released
QUT
Virtual
• Oracle
Portal
2002
• Major
updates to
staff and
student
interfaces
2006
• Introduced
mobile
web-based
application
2008
• Moved to
Looking
Glass
portal
2013
• Released
Digital
Workplace
• Introduced
responsive
design
2015

10. A critical tool for the university
Entry point for
120+
corporate systems &
applications
12.5+ million
unique sessions
in the last year
1+ million
application launches from
LaunchPad in the last year
70+
applications hosted within
Digital Workplace
22+ million
unique page views
in the last year
Has been accessed from
180+
countries
2000+
pages of web content
1.5+ million
unique searches
in the last year
18%
visitors via
mobile device

11. Yo! We’ll solve it!
You got a problem?

12. “There is too much duplication.
Which one is the official policy?”
Mary Manager
Problem 1:

13. Problem 1: Duplicated web content
• Many attempts at isolated
one-stop shops
• Duplicated QUT-wide content
with local flavour on top
• Result:
– Source of truth no longer
clear
– Enterprise wide search
impossible

14. Problem 1: Duplicated web content example
Finance Dept. purchasing policy
Faculty of Law purchasing policyScience and Engineering Faculty purchasing policy
Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation
purchasing policy
QUT Business School purchasing policy

15. Our solution: Global and local content, one page
• Reduced content duplication
by over 85% (17,000 pages to
2,000 pages)
Global
content
Local
content
Same
page

16. Our solution: Global and local content, one page
• Global content:
– Appears in white box at top
– QUT-wide audience
• Local content:
– Appears in blue box
– Local audience, shown based
on users role (e.g Caboolture
staff)

17. Our solution: Global and local content, one page

18. Our solution: Global and local content, one page
• Content authoring community
uses Web Content
Dashboard to manage:
– Pages
– Content
– Resources
(images, documents)
– Communities
– Reporting

19. Our solution: Global and local content, one page
• Key benefits:
– Content can be reused across multiple pages and communities
– Content updated once, published globally
– Maintains flexibility of a distributed content authoring
community but the control of a centralised content authoring
community
– Tailored experience for our users

20. “I can’t find anything! Why can’t
it be just like Google?”
Sally Searcher
Problem 2:

21. Problem 2: Searching silos
• Each website had individual
content search
• Also several application
searches (eg. people search,
book search)
• Staff used Google as it would
search everything

22. Our solution: One search for all content and applications
• One search for:
– Content (all sites)
– People (staff and students)
– Learning data (units, classes)
– Applications
• Simple, easy to use user
interface
180,000+
unique staff
searches since
March 2016
6,000+
unique student
searches since
last Sunday

23. Our solution: One search for all content and applications
Content

24. Our solution: One search for all content and applications
Staff

25. Our solution: One search for all content and applications
Applications

26. Our solution: One search for all content and applications
• User can refine their search
by:
– Website
– Section within Digital
workplace
– Collaboration space
– Org area
– …and more

27. Our solution: One search for all content and applications
• User can customise their
search experience
• Preferences include:
– Default search type
– Number of results
displayed
– Hide contact number

28. Our solution: One search for all content and applications
• Added ‘Google like’ features
• Features include:
– Previous searches
– Type ahead prediction
– Spelling correction

29. Our solution: One search for all content and applications
• Added a feature tour to guide
users through new search
features
• User only sees once and can
end at any time

30. Our solution: One search for all content and applications
• Future ideas:
– Acronym definer (Done!)
– Key dates context menu
(Almost done!)
– Comprehensive search
analytics engine (to help us
tune results) (in progress)
– ‘Search as a service’

31. “I want to be able to access all of
my apps from the Digital Workplace.”
Terry Techhead
Problem 3:

32. Problem 3: Organising the appnado™
• Over 450 apps at QUT
• Some within Digital Workplace,
most outside
• Staff found difficult:
– Knowing which apps were
available
– How to request access and
support
– Maintaining easy access to
their apps

33. Our solution: LaunchPad and Application Directory
Application
DirectoryLaunchPad

34. Our solution: LaunchPad
• Accessible from every page
• Staff (and students) can:
– Create their own web
shortcut; or
– Add an app from the
Application Directory
100,000+
times applications
added to LaunchPad
since May 2015
100,000+
times applications
launched via
LaunchPad by students
since last Sunday

35. Our solution: LaunchPad
• Fully customiseable
• Staff (and students) can:
– Delete apps
– Manage order of apps
– Decide how shortcuts are
opened
– Restore default set of apps

36. Our solution: Application Directory
• Catalogue of all web applications
available at QUT
• Each application has:
– Title
– Description
– Icon
– Category
– Shortcut
– Support contacts; and
– Training & manuals

37. Our solution: LaunchPad and Application Directory
• Future ideas:
– App outage alerts
– App folders
– ‘LaunchPad as a service’

38. “Why is it so hard to
provide feedback?”
Freddie Feedback
Problem 4:

39. Problem 4: Giving feedback was hard
• Many feedback channels
• No consistent place for user to
give feedback
• Managing and reporting on
feedback was difficult

40. Our solution: Smart feedback button
• One simple, easy way to
provide feedback
• Feedback button
on every page
900+
unique pieces of
feedback since
May 2015

41. Our solution: Smart feedback button
• User can select:
– page; or
– relevant content section
and provide comments

42. Our solution: Smart feedback button
• On content pages:
– Feedback sent to
corresponding content
coordinator to action
• Within applications:
– Feedback sent via Jira to
corresponding technical
area to action

44. Implement governance (from the start)
• Absence of a decision-making body =
– difficult to prioritise development
requests
(eg. area with loudest voice wins)
– difficult to maintain level of
standards and quality

45. Don’t rely on written communication
• Don’t rely on staff reading project comms, no matter how well
written
– Visual comms better than written (eg. videos, infographics)
• Make IT Helpdesk aware of technical changes, they can help get
message out.
• Rely on local champions and word of mouth to get the message out

46. Engage early and often
• More you engage with your
users the better
• Can be as formal or informal
• Take them along on the design
journey, helps break down walls
between IT and staff
• We created Staff and Student
Reference Groups
– They can also act as your
project champions

47. Web stats are your friend
• We have stats on almost everything:
– Page views
– Link clicks
– Audiences
– Technology
– Searches
• Solid evidence of how your intranet
is used and by whom will help in
difficult situations
– Eg. “My content is important,
put it on the homepage”
+ In-house built analytics engines

48. Questions

49. Want more information?
Andy McBride
User Experience Designer
a.mcbride@qut.edu.au