Journal
Reading a portal homepage the way a first-time visitor does
A first visit is an errand. Someone needs a gate pass, a payslip, a delivery slot, or a safety induction slot. They are not touring the homepage.
When we open a portal with a client, we refuse the guided tour. We ask the host to name one errand a stranger actually arrives with. Then we try to finish that errand using only what is on the first screen and what a reasonable person would tap next.
Last April the errand was ‘book a contractor induction for Thursday’. The homepage offered news about a town-hall, a banner for a health campaign, and a grid of icons whose labels had been written for people who already knew the departments. Induction sat under ‘Learning’, which sat under ‘People’. The visitor who needed Thursday did not work in People.
We timed the hunt without performing. Four minutes to the form. Then the form asked for an employee number. Contractors do not have one. The host, sitting beside us, said ‘They usually WhatsApp the safety officer’. That sentence belonged in the brief.
A homepage is not a poster. It is the first corridor. If the corridor is full of notices, the errand walks around them — often to a person. Portal visit analysis is the practice of noticing that walk before you add another notice.