Everyone knows the cliche “Customers come first”. But few businesses live that credo. In several rounds of interviews with customers for a couple major corporate products, we’ve encountered an assumption among many interviewees that companies are out to screw the customer. People simply don’t trust companies’ motivations. No, people don’t think companies are going to genuinely rip them off — for example, they trust the checkout process; they trust giving them their credit card. But they still sense they will somehow be getting a raw deal.

From what I’ve seen, this paranoia is blown way out of proportion. But though companies may not be out to screw you, there’s little chance they really understand what you want.

What follows is an excerpt from an article in this Sunday’s New York Times called “Put Buyers First? What a Concept”. Basically it started with the author wowed by the fact that Amazon fixed a mistake that wasn’t even their own: they sent the author a replacement PlayStation 3, even though it was his silly neighbour who had signed for the original package, and then left it in the hallway of the apartment building (where it promptly disappeared).

But the point isn’t that this guy had a happy Christmas. The point is the Amazon corporate ethos it reveals. Here’s the relevant bit from the article:

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In November 2007 Jakob Neilsen published the results of research he conducted into the Information Architecture of intranets.

His conclusion was that – despite having looked at more such sites than (probably) anyone else alive – he was unable to suggest a single structure that would suit them all.

While that may be true, it is not the whole story.

I have read many of his reports over the years and what strikes me is not the differences between most intranets, but the similarities. In particular, the commonality of content from one intranet to another is remarkably constant.

The benefit of recognising this pattern is less legwork when building a new site.

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