The corporate intranet, and Enterprise Social Networks, has to support a broad range of users and many different functional use cases. Understanding the context of the people who use the platform, including the things they do that are not directly on the platform, is critical in providing a “right” design.
“Identifying the real problem is one of the main reasons to conduct field research. After all, if you solve the wrong problem, it doesn’t matter how well you solve it. A great design of the wrong thing? It’ll still be the wrong thing. “
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/field-studies-intranet-redesign/
no straight lines 