Information Pollution

Jakob Nielsen has “Ten Steps for Cleaning Up Information Pollution,” summarized as “better prioritization, fewer interruptions, and concentrated information that’s easy to find and manage.” He notes that employees waste time looking for information on “bad intranets,” and “many websites alienate users by burying answers to basic questions in useless corporatese.” His top ten is its about setting priorities and giving most of your time to critical tasks. “Unfortunately,” he says, “current information systems [lead] to an interrupt-driven workday and reduced productivity.” The last four of his ten steps focus on companies, including these two that are relevant to our consulting work:

Answer common customer questions on your website using clear and concise language. This will save your customers a lot of time — thus making you popular — and will keep them from pestering you with time-consuming phone calls and emails.

User test your intranet. Clean it up so that employees can find stuff faster, and make the intranet homepage their entry point for keeping up on company news and events.

Companies would to well to focus some of the effort, energy, and money spent on SEO, and focus on content, architecture, and overall usability.