Discoverability: It’s a Game Changer

Discoverability is a term inherently connected to our modern time, so it only makes sense to start familiarizing ourselves with its definition. Paul Olenick, an expert in Discovery, SharePoint, Enterprise Search and Collaboration, shares his knowledge with us.

There’s an overwhelming amount of content available to most information workers. Any technology that can help prioritize or automatically surface high-priority, relevant content is a game changer. With technologies like Delve/Office Graph, machine learning and other innovations, we’re starting to see these come into fruition.““

Paul Olenick

Discoverability refers to a piece of content’s ability to be found. The concept of discoverability becomes critical with

the increasing application of digital workplaces, online cloud storage and cross-platform usability. People

gravitate toward software and online tools that simplify this process. According to Olenick, today’s digital workplaces must utilize design concepts, such as discoverability, to

encourage user adoption.

One key tenet is that we must make it easy for users to ‘do the right thing.’ If we’re asking them to, for

example, only share content externally in a particular way, it’s got to be easy for them or they’ll find a different way (for

example [they] may use Dropbox or Google Drive instead of the company-authorized method for sharing files

externally)… Technology should not be an obstacle, but rather a value-add.“ “

As we spend more time online, we have increased experiences interacting with well-designed online applications.

According to Olenick, people are more exposed to high-quality, consumer-grade software, which has placed

a high level of expectation on companies to offer the same quality of technology in their digital workplace.

Since technology is emerging rapidly our vocabulary continues to evolve with it. With past unrecognizable words like “the internet,” there’s

no telling what future hot terms will be. It’s something we’ll all discover together.