Web Portals and Storing Account Profiles

Web portals offer a personal means to store account profiles and account information, allowing the user to return and recall important steps and content bookmarked.  As I previously wrote, web portals are like food buffets - presenting a ton of choices.  When we have unlimited or near unlimited content, we tend to want to consume more than we need.  We take an extra plate so to speak.  One plate can serve many dishes, even offer a seamless experience across the board without having to return to the table. The proprietary perspective of capturing constituent information and using it to cater to the expectations presents another challenge because it means learners have to repeat their information in account profiles all over the place. This is a call for action to support single sign-on and authentication through federation, rather than offering learners standalone account profiles.

Web portals attempt to offer some value in helping constituents bridge the varied applications and step through the complex questions based upon self reported data. However, the assumption that constituents or target audiences can consume the content without assistance is a mistake, especially for constituents who are visiting for the first time. When a patron visits a restaurant and is considering the menu, they are often asked by the hostess or server “Is this the first time you are experiencing our venue?”

This extra step is often missing on web portals because they treat visitors all the same or attempt to put people into categories all the same, leading most down unfamilar paths - increasing the lost feeling. In addition, the sharing of information between applications is so problematic that it is often just skipped, losing any ability to overcome the initial challenges of first time visitors.