Cant Take The Hunt Out of the User

While technology continues to advance, the core nature of human behavior remains the same. Yes, weve evolved; however the fact that we now use a microwave instead of starting a fire with sticks and rocks does not change the fact that we still need to eat!

All kitchen tools aside; the core nature of human behavior plays a crucial role in several aspects of the Enterprise world. Take a SharePoint or Office365 intranet portal as an example; when evaluating your employees user experience, the focus is on how comfortable the portal suits an employees needs. Having an intranet portal is meant to make employees work-life easy, organized and efficient. However, when human nature is disregarded during the creation or alteration process of a portal, the attempt to optimize employee work-life backfires as frustration leads to lack of motivation, and overall productivity- not to mention a decrease in ROI.

Recent statistics implicate just how impacting user experience is at work; 52% of people claimed that negative user experiences made them less likely to engage with a company. In addition, studies are predicting that user experience will take over price and product as the key differentiation by 2020.

The Hunters Choice

In the times where hunting and gathering were crucial practices for survival, one would choose to engage with the tool he or she deemed useful to fulfill his or her needs. In modern days, where work replaces hunting, getting an employee to engage with your intranet tool boils down to this ancient decision regarding the usefulness of a tool. The very basics of human behavior shows that three hemispheres of the brain come into play when coming to such a decision. Firstly, the reptilian brain which deals with human needs. Users have a mission, and they want to know that their portal is giving them what they need in order to complete it. Next, the emotion center of the brain, or the limbic system. In order to prevent frustration and anger from affecting work ethic, a users emotions must move in a positive direction when executing tasks. Lastly, the executive and logical branch of our brain: the neo-cortex. A user must logically conclude that their portal ranks highly in its level of usefulness.

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Hitting the Trifecta

Tapping into human nature and hitting the trifecta where all three hemispheres are satisfied becomes achievable with advanced analytics. Rather than making decisions about your portal based off of a hunch, data that provide insight on precisely where changes need to be made in order to fit the needs of users can be collected prior to making alterations. For example: advanced analytics can identify content-crammed pages that take too long to load, irrelevant content, failed searches, specific departments and users lacking engagement, exit pages, and more areas in need of improvement. These metrics highlight where needs are not being met, and where user frustration stems from. Neglect to these areas heavily influence an employees decision to further engage in the portal as it does not serve useful and efficient.

Sharp Checkup

Reaching a portals prime positive experience requires trial and error. After changes are made, advanced analytics can offer metrics that suggest the success rate of the changes, such as a spike in the average number and length of page visits. To secure that changes to the portal were successful in a manner that is more personalized to the individual user, campaigns can be implemented in the form of email, text, time-sensitive pop-up questions, and context-based pop up questions, which allow the user to add in their own insights about what is helpful or frustrating to them. The personalized campaigns strengthen an employees decision to engage with the portal as it is calming and logical to continue with a tool that is actively molding to user needs.

People may not be searching for sharper hunting tools to capture dinner, however they are still looking for the sharpest tools in technology to help them achieve success. Advanced analytics actively works with portals, improving them by analyzing user behavior and checking that needs are being met in order to provide a prime user experience.

Marketing Specialist at Intlock/ Cardiolog Analytics. Major in Psychology and a Minor in Business. The mix of my interests, business and psychology, allow me to have a great appreciation for analytic tools that look to improve the quality of "work-life" while simultaneously guiding a business to reach its maximum potential. Viewfullprofile

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The Search for the Sharpest Tool in the Shed: Advanced Analytics & User Experience - Business 2 Community