Intranet Design: A user-centred approach

Intranet Design
A user-centred approach

Contents
 Recent intranet trends
 5 dimensions of a great intranet
 Our approach to strategic UX

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 intranets
is 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 approach
Award-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 content
To 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 - Benchmarking
BEFORE 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 time
e.g. pre and post project
 against industry standards
(availability of data
permitting)
 Or try the Intranet Review
Toolkit

UX
Research
& IA
Content
Marketing
Graphic
design
Technology
Publication &
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/e
thnography
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

Intranet Design: A user-centred approach

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