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| Copyright © 2006 by Incoda Corporation |
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KCurve, an Incoda affiliate company, is a boutique content management consultancy. The company provides solutions for creating, searching, finding, organizing, navigating, and presenting content. KCurve is headquartered in Bronxville, New York (near New York City).
KCurve provides the following services:
User Experience Research and Information Organization
Website Assessment. We review your existing or partially developed website and recommend ways that the user experience can be improved.
User Research and Task Analysis. We examine the existing or potential interaction of users with your site by conducting in-depth interviews. By finding out who your audiences are and how they approach their tasks - whether it's providing technical support for the product that you sell or buying a birthday present - we can determine how well your site meets their needs and expectations.
Content Inventory. We catalog all the content on your site in order to find out what you have, what its properties are and how it is currently organized and labeled. The inventory is an important step in creating a new or revised information structure that will make the most sense to your users.
Metadata Strategy and Development. Based on the content inventory, we recommend the metadata elements that will help to optimize information organization and retrieval. We also define the rules associated with applying each of the elements.
Content and User Needs Gap Analysis. We compare your content with both the needs of your users and your business objectives in order to find evidence of content gaps or areas of mismatch.
Content Organization. We design and develop content organization structures such as taxonomies, topic maps or other controlled vocabularies based on user and content analyses.
Search Engine Optimization. We optimize search engine usage on your site by auditing the searching experiences of users through logs, Web page statistics and interviews. We also examine how metadata might be used to improve search results and evaluate the presentation of search results.
Technology Assessment
KCurve offers services for evaluating and acquiring the software products and tools that support your business goals and user needs. This is especially important in an environment where the product landscape is fluid - almost chaotic - and mergers and buyouts are frequent.
The types of products that you are likely to consider for your site offer functionality in the following areas (in alphabetical order and not comprehensive):
Software Evaluation. We provide a list of appropriate features for your specific needs and evaluate alternative products.
Software Acquisition. We interview product vendors and come up with a short list of finalists based upon your needs and desired features.
Software Implementation. We work with your team to insure that the implementation and integration of selected software packages support the needs for which they were acquired. For example, customization based on the metadata strategy that was implemented may be required to insure that a search engine produces acceptable results.
Design and Delivery of Training Programs
KCurve offers a range of services to insure that users make effective use of a new or re-designed site or application. As with all our services, user needs and business objectives are paramount.
Needs Assessment. We provide training plans for all types of new system implementations - from the rollout of an Intranet site to the installation of a CRM or Sales Management system. We focus on assessing needs in three essential areas in order to determine what should be taught:
Development of Instructional Materials and Activities. We develop learning objectives for each element of a system and then write instructional and testing plans based on these objectives. We develop materials to support either distance (e-learning) or classroom training, using the authoring system of your choice. We also provide job aids appropriate to the tasks being performed.
Delivery of Classroom Training. In most cases, we recommend that internal task or subject matter experts be trained to deliver training. Our Train the Trainer curriculum consists of platform skills as well as customized system skills. We monitor and evaluate potential trainers at each step in the process and use tools such as videotaping to reinforce learning and provide feedback. The Train the Trainer program also provides the opportunity to try out and evaluate all instruction and learner activities.
For more information about KCurve, please visit their website at www.kcurve.com.
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