Recently I have been researching my own collective intelligencesuite of applications.I have been systematically trying and experimenting numerous solutions. Here I will share with you some of my preliminary conclusions for corporate knowledge sharing applications:
WikiMedia
This is open source software, and is the same thing Wikipedia is built on.Anyone can implement it on an server, their own desktop, or even on a portable memory stick. As reported previously it is being used by manyFortune 500companies. Best of all, it’s free. However it does have some serious drawbacks which must be revealed.
WikiMedia Usability Problems
The look and feel of a WikiMedia product, is familiar to anyone who has used Wikipedia.The familiar interfacemakes for a happy beginning.But when one is face with the daunting task of posting, the comfort level quickly changes. For example,how do you post a page? This simple function is not made clear, and can be confounding to new users. The only way to post a page is to:
1.Search on a topic.
2.Discover the page doesn’t exist
3. Click on a linkonthe “not found” page.
4. Then begin writing.
WikiMedia Formatting Difficulties
Formatting anything other than straight text is difficult.WikiMedia doesn’t use pure HTML formatting, nor does it have a WYSIWYG editor.Individuals used to working within thesimplisticlyrefinedworld of blogs, may find thefunctionality, or lack thereof frustrating. Here is just a small taste of Wikipedia’s help section onformatting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page
From a user’s viewpoint, (which really is the only thing that matters) this is not very good. WikiMedia’s help section is extremely difficult to follow, and too verbose. The first page is filled with promise.However upon digging deeper the writing is confused, and unfocused.
In evaluating collective intelligence systems, remember, the cornerstones of usability according to Nielsen(2003) are systems that are:
a. intuitive
b. easy to learn and remember
c. satisfying
d. efficient to work with
e. low error rate, and easy to recover if you do make a mistake.
I would like torecommend that the WikiMedia edit functions be made more user friendly and not written in such a way to turn off potential valuable contributors.
References:
Nielsen, J. (2003). Usability 101: definition and fundamentals. RetrievedJanuary 6, 2008, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html
Wikipedia.org (2007) Help. Retrieved January 6, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents