Intranet Design

A user-centred approach

Contents Recent intranet trends

5 dimensions of a great intranet

Our approach to strategic UX

Recent intranet trends

Intranet teams are growing

Source: 10 Best Intranets of 2014 – Nielsen Norman Group

Responsive design is gaining traction Recognition of need to support a more mobile workforce

Even in the office, mobile “grab moments” represent opportunity to engage

Although slightly higher up-front investment, cost can be less than a mobile optimised site

Ongoing maintenance cost reduction as a result of 1 code-base

Trending features

Carousels

Persistent right rail

Functional footers

Local search

Mega menus

Film strip related content

Flat design

Social tools

Smart change management

Easing colleagues into a new design

Consistent and regular project communication

Coordinated release strategy and comms

Employee engagement and participation in the redesign

Great intranets are being created faster

Source: 10 Best Intranets of 2014 – Nielsen Norman Group

Planning for ongoing success

Governance and endless change

Roadmap and plans for continual improvement/enhancement

Management and maintenance resources in place

Committees convened and senior sponsorship secured

5 dimensions of a great intranet

“One of the key challenges with intranetsis getting people to use them.

This is often because the intranet does not actually help them with their day to day work.

Unless it does, there is no incentive to use it.”

Sumner, Jason (editor). Melcrum Publishing, 2006. “Transforming your intranet”. P93.

5 dimensions of a great intranet Strategy

Organisation and governance

User-centred approach

Structure, design and content

Metrics

#1 Strategy

Business objectives

Mission statement

User requirements

Information management

Technology

Governance

Content contribution

Measurement

Marketing

Financials

Roadmap

#2 Organisation and governance• Successful intranets

have senior sponsorship.

• You need to identify who is managerially responsible for:• Monitoring quality • Developing

guidelines• Enforcing

standards• Managing

publishing• Regulatory

compliance

#3 User-centred approachAward-winning intranets are increasingly employing user-centred techniques

The percentage of winning intranets that employed some of the main usability methods in their design process.

#4 Structure, design and contentTo maximise usability and findability:

• use a common branding and navigation approach

• apply best practices and internet conventions

#5 Metrics

Hard values

• Cost reduction• Time savings• Increased revenue

What are you hoping to achieve and how will you measure it?Soft values

• Internal communication• Employee engagement• Employee retention and job satisfaction• Streamlined operations and business

processes• Employee productivity and collaboration• HR management• Knowledge management

Metrics - BenchmarkingBEFORE AFTER

STRATEGY    

  Mission statement / clear proposition 1 3

  Resourcing, contributor needs, workflow, ownership 2 2

  Information strategy, content, metadata 1 4

  Technology, CMS, search, DMS, remote access 2 1

  Total (20) 6 10

ORGANISATION AND GOVERNANCE    

  Senior sponsorship 2 5

  Cross-functional steering 2 2

  Hybrid centralised / decentralised model 3 3

  Standards and guidelines 3 5

  Risk-management 1 2

  Total (20) 11 17

USER-CENTRED APPROACH    

  Based on solid stakeholder and user research 3 4

  Personas and use cases reviewed regularly 2 3

  User satisfaction reviewed regularly 4 4

  UX methods applied to new sections 1 1

  Total (20) 10 12

STRUCTURE, DESIGN AND CONTENT    

  Common branding and navigation 4 2

  Best practice design and implementation 2 1

  Genuinely useful content, features, search 3 3

  Personalisation / customisation 0 2

  Total (20) 9 8

RETURN ON INVESTMENT    

  Cost savings 1 0

  Employee engagement, productivity and collaboration 2 2

  Improved knowledge management 2 3

  Streamlined business processes 2 4

  Total (20) 7 9

   

TOTAL SCORE (100) 43 56

Ideally use personalised criteria to score your intranet:

against itself over timee.g. pre and post project

against industry standards (availability of data permitting)

Or try the Intranet Review Toolkit

A strategic UX approach

UX

Research & IA

Content Marketing

Graphic design

TechnologyPublication & Deployment

Interaction design

Content strategy

Functional & Tech Spec

Flexible UX toolkit

Insight Strategy Execution

Analytics

Expert review

Content audit

Market analysis

Competitor analysis

Depth interviews

User /stakeholder

survey

Focus group

Diary study

Observation/ethnography

Business objectives &

KPIs

Ideation workshop

Strategic roadmap

Business process

Governance

Personas & experience

map

Scenarios & user journeys

Sitemaps & inventories

Card sort & tree testing

Wireframes &

prototypes

Storyboard

Digital brand translation

Web design

Interaction design

Responsive design

Research & Discovery

Analytics

Stakeholder interviews

User interviews

Surveys

Expert evaluation

Data & insight

Scorecard

User profiles

Understand the audience and evaluate your current position

Strategy & Planning

Objectives & goal mapping

Strategic positioning

Value analysis

Scope definition

Full list of requirements

Strategic roadmap and programme plan

Unify stakeholder and user objectives, and agree strategic approach

User Experience Design

Content review process & support

Card sorting

Iterative lo-fi prototyping

User testing

Site structure

Wireframes & user journeys

Site inventory

Design concepts

Define, test and refine the site structure and design

Final designs

Thank You