BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE INFORMATION ACCESS

• Inadequate Information or Information Overload Searches often result in too little or too much information. When there is too much information, users experience information overload since important information is often obscured by the volume of information.
   

• Too Many Informational Sources Users must often look though different forms, file formats, and storage locations because information is often located on file servers, HTML pages on Web servers, or e-mail on messaging servers.
   

• Single Data Source Searching is generally performed on one data source at a time which makes finding content even more difficult.
   

• Outdated Information Finding the most current information, including updates to important documents, is often difficult.

Poor organization makes it difficult to:

• Access Documents Poor document organization can make it difficult to find information. 
   

•  Collaborate Poor document organization can also affect the ability to effectively collaborate on the creation of a document.
   

• Provide Update Notifications Inefficiencies can result if a document is updated but other people in an organization are not informed that it was updated.
   

• Review and Approve Documents Inaccuracies can result if a document is not adequately reviewed.

To make it easy for users to navigate, browse, and find what they need, you can divide portal site content into areas. Areas let you organize content — from documents to people to sites — into sets of related information even though the content can be stored in different sources and formats. To control all of the content in an area, the portal site administrator can assign a manager for the area. The manager can then control what content appears in the area and who has access to it.