To cope with overwhelming increases in documents, emails, and other communications, more and more organizations are embracing a structured, centralized approach, such as Content Service Platforms, such as Alfresco.

Many collaboration platforms fail because business users are presented with a default layout that is neither configured to their needs nor reveals many of the offers that the platform can offer.

User adoption is at the core of the ROI (return of investment). But unfortunately, companies still struggle with adoption. In implementing Content Services technology, we fundamentally change the way an individual or group does their job. This is why user adoption is broadly affected by issues of accessibility and experience.

Based on our experience, below 5 tips we are adopting for improving user adoption, by making the right content easier to access and retrieve, through a simple effective, and adaptable user experience.

1. Make a layout flexible and adaptable

Rigid and static layouts may not fit all user needs and requirements. The friction, due to a misalignment with human behavior, is caused when the design of your product is not able to anticipate the way users will act and behave with it.

When we released Alfred Finder, we tested the UX, by developing three different projects, within different organizations, from the insurance sectors to the recruitment agencies. Based on the outcomes, we decided to give users full autonomy, by providing a default layout, but still with the possibility to create and save several ones, by dragging panels to the preferred position.

2. Make navigation smart to increase findability

Alfred Finder is a web application focused on finding documents on the Alfresco Digital Platform. In the previous blog post, we already showed the main ways to search for documents, find them in less than 3 seconds and easily retrieve your content.

In my opinion, findability is one of the strengths of Alfred Finder, compared also to Alfresco. The search bar, the facets, and explorer panels act as a combination between Google and Windows Explorer, with advanced search capabilities.

You can always watch an extract of the advanced search capabilities here.

3. Make metadata easily manageable 

Tagging information with metadata is a way to enhance the findability of your content. In the metadata panels, you can add or remove specific aspects of your document.

The search results then are configured to display the main company categories and allow the users to easily narrow down the results via faceted navigation.

4. Create different views

One of the great benefits of properly tagging your content is that you can create as many different views as you need. In the search results panel, you can define the columns to display, you can sort them and save all the time, as your preferred layout.

5. Make it sexy, look and feel

What does mean to look and feel like?  Well, as probably most of you already know, this is a term related to the graphical UI and includes several elements, like color, shapes, layout, and size.

At Xenit, we take care of the importance of branding and the need for organizations to integrate a product within their processes. Our customers can configure and personalize the web application, by choosing their logo, their color scheme, or even better integrate Alfred Finder with a third-party application.

Software adoption is a matter of habits and, as humans, we don’t like to change our habits. User adoption depends heavily on the way people interact with a new platform, a new application, or a new framework, especially at the early stages.

As long as we are able, as a product development company, to listen to and understand user’s needs, translate that needs into an adaptable and flexible product, and show the value users can find by adopting it, the user adoption will be enhanced, by following a natural learning process.