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October
28, 2002 Program Summary |
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"Giving Customers What They Want -- Self-Service Via the Web" was the first event in a three-part Fall professional development series entitled, "Solving Information Challenges in the Workplace." Summary:
The presentation by software developer, educator, and best practices
expert Chet Leighton was, by all accounts, a smash hit! A warm
and enthusiastic crowd of 30 people attended the combination of an informal
dinner and presentation (or presentation only) at Margie's private banquet
room. The
event afforded a terrific opportunity for attendees with diverse backgrounds
to exchange perspectives during an exploration of self-service Web portals.
Because Chet's talk covered general principles rather than architecture
or programming techniques, the material was equally appealing to the
technical communicators, managers, Web developers, database designers,
educators, trainers, human performance specialists, and other professionals
in the audience. Chet led us through an in-depth exploration of a real-life self-service problem at SFSU: How to help students plan a degree program. As a former SFSU graduate student and now an instructor at the college, he is quite familiar with SFSU's "information-only" Web site. We in the audience, however, experienced the opportunity to decide for ourselves, via small-group discussions, what we liked or disliked about the current system. Our flip chart pages quickly filled with the shortcomings we spotted as potential users. Chet
next invited us to share our small-group observations (which included
a litany of complaints!) with the larger gathering. Following a break
and our door prize drawing, he then unveiled his best practices solution
-- a dynamic and highly assistive replacement for the old system. Lo
and behold, it addressed nearly everything we had observed in the way
of shortcomings, and left us feeling inspired, satisfied, and on several
levels, supremely vindicated! Fortunately, this new system has now replaced
the old one, much to SFSU's delight. For more information:
Photography by Mary Meyer. |
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Topic 1: |
"Giving
Customers What They Want -- Self-Service Via the Web"
Integrating Software Tools with Information Portals to Create Performance-Based Portals |
Date: | Monday evening, October 28, 2002 |
Speaker: | Chet Leighton, instructor at San Francisco State University, software developer, and national expert on knowledge management and best practices in information and workplace performance. |
Description: |
"Giving Customers What They Want -- Self-Service via the Web" dealt with the familiar problem of designing a Web site (a portal) in which visitors need to perform a variety of tasks in a self-service mode. For example, the portal may help students access campus services, employees perform human resource transactions, or customers submit service requests. In each case, however, merely presenting visitors with information does not necessarily mean they can effectively help themselves! To address this problem, performance-based portals focus on the tasks visitors need to perform. Such portals provide software tools, as well as information, to help people make decisions as they complete their tasks. The result is a much more efficient, successful, and enjoyable experience. Come and learn more about identifying the issues involved -- and the best-practice solutions -- at this highly interactive and information-packed event! |
Door Prize: | "User and Task Analysis for Interface Design" by JoAnn Hackos. |
Program: |
Part
1: Exploring the issues through real self-service examples Case
#1: Northern California Credit customer service application
answers these questions: Case
#2: SFSU student advising (planning a degree program) answers
these questions: Part
2: Exploring best-practice solutions for the self-service example
How do you turn an information-based portal into a performance-based portal? |
Readings: |
For a white paper on a closely related topic written by Chet Leighton and Cindy McCabe, please download the following PDF file (310K): http://www.infomarksoft.com/papers/developing_best_practices_for_knowledge_work.pdf |