iSchool Capstone

User Behavior Analysis: The Case Study of Golder Associates' Collaboration Workspaces

Project tags:

business & systems analysis

information behavior & user research

Project poster

Golder Associates (Golder) has over 5,000 consultants located worldwide, and works with clients in many sectors including oil and gas, mining, and waste management. One primary internal SharePoint tool Golder consultants use to share information and stay up-to-date is Collaboration Workspaces (CWS). Within each CWS, sub-sites are broken down by client sectors, technical communities, and regions; however, not much is known about how consultants use the sub-sites and if CWS meet their needs.

Our team performed user behavior analysis on a user activity log in conjunction with user research for the purpose of improving users’ internal communication, efficiency, and satisfaction within five CWS sub-sites. We helped Golder better understand the user composition, user habits, important existing features, and potential improvements of these CWS sub-sites. More important, we created a methodology that is replicable, can be built upon, and will be applied to other CWS sites to further facilitate information sharing.

Project participants:

Anne Nguyen

MLIS

Cong Wang

MSIM

Yuan Wang

MSIM

Zhen Wang

MSIM