About HFI

Domains and Technologies

Since its inception, HFI has done extensive human factors work in almost every domain and technology, such as:

Intranet/Extranet – Our Approach

A successful Intranet/Extranet requires that we clearly understand its role or purpose in your business. Do others in your organization buy into this purpose? We help you establish a clear vision. From this foundation, all else falls into place.

Benefits to count on:

Self-evident site navigation
Speedy response time
Rapid task completion
No customer confusion
Seamless error handling and feedback
Attaining a corporate goal

Step	Activity
1. Establish the why of your Intranet/Extranet.	Pick a purpose. Want a paperless office? (No way, Jose, but you can start.) Want to beat the platform plethora problem by using browser-based applications? Need to pull diverse business units together using Intranet communication? (If so, consider putting head office news on your home page.) We help pick a purpose. We design to help focus your site.
2. Pick your applications.	For each persona, what moves them to action? We help decide. What kind of stimulation or novelty? How to build ego for having the latest or best? What new knowledge satisfies? What in-group beckons? What solutions needed?
3. Invent a theme or metaphor.	Given the motivational requirements of each persona, what theme or metaphor pulls the site together? We weigh the use of download-intensive graphics against the speed of standard fonts. Get pizzazz.
4. Match navigation to the tasks & then test.	We select a navigation style that reduces user memory requirements and increases task satisfaction. We create an efficient work flow to reduce download times. These important steps result in your "high-level design." It's worth testing a pencil drawing on 5 or 10 users who match your personas. Success here removes 80% of your design risk!
5. Design home page and 2 – 4 supporting screens.	We provide a "look and feel" that gives examples for your fellow designers to imitate (and critique!). Now you're ready for "roll-out" with additional detailed page design. You have a de facto design standard. Our expertise in ergonomic design prevents small errors from accumulating into a problem- plagued site. We can also help you put a Web standards initiative into place.
6. Test detailed design and iterate.	We evaluate the detailed design using "heuristic evaluation," also called "expert review." After fixing those issues, we test your task flows on 8 to 15 users who match your personas. We test enough modules on your site to eliminate user problems in deployment. Do we redesign? You bet! Iteration works.
7. Deliver the goods.	We work with your programmers and designers to ensure timely and effective delivery at each step of the way. Get those hits!