IBM Support Portal Prototype Workshop September 17 - 19 2007 Post :: workshop notes

1. User Focused :: Business Centric IBM Support PortalPrototype WorkshopSeptember 17 - 19 2007Post :: workshop notes IBM Center for Solution Innovation : : Boston | New York

2. Attendees IBM Support Team Paula Fulton SPE Project Lead Linda Allen GTS Representative Christie Williams SWG Representative Perry Dykes STG Representative John Goodson WPS Technical Keith E Instone ibm.com / UI Innovation Center Team Gustavo Candelas UX Information Architect/ Project Lead Tyrrell Donelan UX Creative Director / Project SME Chi Nangia UX Information Architect Jenn DeForge UX Art Director / Lead Designer Liz Baird Project Manager

3. Monday Agenda Day 1

4. Tuesday Agenda Day 2

5. Wednesday Day 3

6. Project Goals • Clickable prototype that establishes a baseline and direction for next iteration of Support & Downloads as an effective and efficient web portal that provides technical support resources • A single view into IBM Support for all users e.g. different audience type, entitlement, contract, internal… • Single user experience across IBM with the ability to customize and personalize the experience • Smooth Linkage to and from other content as appropriate (Marketing, Developerworks, Partnerworld, legacy IT applications) • User context is set by preferences, actions, inventory… System responds to the user’s context with dynamic content and functionality • Aggregator of core support services to resolve the user’s identified task

7. Project Objectives • Provide a unified support experience for all users • Improves the ability for the user to self-assist • Provide a dynamic experience, personalized for the user based on inventory, contracts, past usage of the site and user’s own customization • Foster collaboration and feedback to guide development • Increase service levels and open new revenue opportunities

8. Expectations for Prototype • Not a technical prototype • Help the user select and manage their context for anonymous and registered users • Demonstrate how a user in their context would accomplish one of the following tasks A. Troubleshooting i. Single product (anonymous user) ii. Multiple products (Authenticated user) B. Manage Contest - (Entitled user) • Keep within the IBM.com user experience and standards (when applicable) and extend as need • Bring silos into a unified UI and to provide the capability for each to expand at their respective pace • Provide a smooth transition between current state and desired future state

9. User Pain Points Categorized by Team Self service • Customer needs to help himself to solve his own problems effectively and electronically • Ability to manage multiple problems concurrently • Download Personalization • You should know me • Too many places to go register • Too many registrations to find one solution Community • Hard to connect to the right person who knows exactly what I needNavigation • Navigation does not lead to the right place so we start to search, which stinks Visibility • Business partners need to know their customers • Customers don’t know what the other users in their own company are doing • No visibility across customers Proactive Communication • Information geared towards break/fix does not address proactive knowledge • Don’t know what I don’t know • Tell me what I need to know before I ask Search • I type in what I am looking for and I don’t see any useful results

10. User Pain Points (cont’d) Too many places • Go to different places on the site for different products • Go to different places for one solution Consistent Experience • Silo’d experience • Inconsistent support across IBM products • Integrate Hardware, Software, etc. • Info and tools are spread across different areas and different websites • I tell one part of the site something and I have to tell it again to another part of the site Availability • User site is not available Information • Can’t find what I need to accomplish something, to solve a problem, understand something, to plan • I have to find what I’m looking for in too many places • Too much information available (x2) • Too much information that is irrelevant (x2) Single-sign on Content Quality • Missing content

11. Business Pain Points Categorized by Team Web Strategy · The web site is seen as a sales channel when it is really a crucial part of the customer’s relationship with IBM Infrastructure · Availability of services we depend on (web ID for instance) Entitlements · Entitlement databases scattered in GEOS · Entitlement is challenging, disparate and makes an overall user experience difficult to provide · No single entitlement source · Too many ICNs per client · Entitlement info spread across multiple places – difficult to map together so have complete picture for a user / company Data Consistency • No single product/solution taxonomy • Our support content is poorly written, poorly tagged and hard to repurpose to other situations • No standard and universally used product taxonomy • Differences in data sources for similar information • Inconsistent tagging of technical documents by product, task, topic • No standard and universally used customer definitions and relationship of customer subgroups ( Different contracts with different groups) Premium Service · Do not differentiate premium customers enough over the web – they need more value for the $ they pay

12. Business Pain Points (cont’d) Experience • Applications are developed based on the org channel/budgets, not based on the best user experience • Quality of Experience of tools were dependant on (Search, XSR,…) Silos • There are two many stakeholders for any project • Different brands have different expectations for common site • Projects and development resources funded by brand so difficult to do thiugs across IBM • Support center are separated with separate tools and don’t talk to each other • Real estates need to be fairly shared across IBM orgs. • We provide support by product but customers buy solutions • Hard to move legacy apps to new converge model Governance • It takes to long to roll out a new feature. We are always behind the rest of the web. • Product / toll development process to long discourages experimentation and innovation • Process that slow down what we can accomplish • Mission creep blurry direction who owns what? • Governance of we site and supporting tools is lacking • Governance model >Funding > priorities > goals > measurements

13. Use Case Description / Prototype Scope • Use Case I (Use case 1: Troubleshooting a Problem) • New User • Trouble Shoot a single product (AIX 5.3) • A typical problem (need to define) • Use Case II (Use case 1: Troubleshooting a Problem) • Authenticated User • Preloaded and managed context • Multiple products (name products) System p 570 with AIX 5.3 with Websphere Portal 5.1.0.2 • Trouble shoot problem caused by multiple products • Use Case III (Use case 2.1: Setting the Context Profile) • Entitled User • Organized inventory • Task: regrouping inventory • Task: add products to inventory

14. Prototype Flows Scenario 1 /Use Case 1.0 Scenario 2 /Use Case 1.0 Scenario 3 /Use Case 2.1(revised)

15. Prototype Users Anonymous User Authenticated User Entitled User Increased Functionality 6

16. Prototype/Use Case Notes (Content and Scenarios) • Scenario I, II, and II • Please refer to ContentMatrix.xls for content requirements • Scenario I & 2 • Use Case 1.0 Troubleshooting • Scenario 3 • Revised version of Use Case 2.1 Setting the Content Profile

17. Appendix Innovation Center Documents 1- IBM Support Portal Prototype Workshop September 17 – 19 2007 2- IBM Client Self-Assist Vision Prototype 6/ 20/ 2007 3- High Level Feature & Site Map Client Self Assist Vision Prototype