Analysing Intranet Search Satisfaction and Findability. A Quantitative Study of Changes in Perception of Organisational Search Satisfaction and Intranet Findability

Abstract

Aside from the fact that intra-organisational networks are centralised platforms and that information publishing is limited to selected employees, organisations find search satisfaction and findability to have reached an average level. As the purchase, development and the implementation of a search tool is an expensive investment for an organisation which strives to improve the organisational search satisfaction and intranet findability, improvement is desired. However, only a small amount of research has been done in the subject of intranets and academia appears to be more concerned with the public web rather than the intranets. This study has attempted to fill this void, by analysing how factors, correlated with organisational search satisfaction and intranet findability, vary over the time frame of three years. In this study we have analysed data provided by a company specialised in search solutions. The data were collected over three years in the form of annual surveys. Analysing this data we have formulated our research question to how specific factors impact the perceived organisational search satisfaction and intranet findability and how the impact changes over time. By limiting the research to the perception of search managers, a term including all roles who are in charge of maintaining the intranet search applications, this study was adapted to an organisational level. This means that the respondents in the surveys used in this study are not end-users but the manager of the search applications. In our conclusions, we present the number of employees, the use of taxonomy and key performance indicators as the three principal factors which create the most significant impact on organisational search satisfaction and intranet findability as well as how satisfaction and findability have varied over time.