Summary

The ten winning intranets are:

• ABB (design agency: BEKK Consulting)
• BellSouth
• Credit Suisse Financial Services
• Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Australia (design agency: Eclipse Group)
• Lonely Planet Publications
• Mira Networks AB
• Northwestern Mutual
• Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
• Washington Mutual (design agency: Towers Perrin)
• The World Bank Group (design agency: Satyam Computer Services)

Washington Mutual won for an intranet application to manage executive compensation. The other nine winners were company-wide intranets.

Most of the intranets represent huge companies with large amounts of documents and mission-critical applications such as sales force automation. But it is interesting to note that some of the winning designs represent small companies, proving that great intranet usability can be found in a wide variety of places. A large budget will certainly do some good, but the best intranets come from a focus on simplicity, iterative design, and willingness to let the design be driven by users' needs.

The bulk of the report consists of detailed case studies of each of the ten winning intranet designs, including discussions of the main problems they faced, how these problems were overcome in the redesign process, and how the new design compared with the previous design.

> Read Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: main trends in this design annual
> See sample chapter as thumbnails
 

Best Practices

• Design templates and how to achieve a consistent look and feel
• Intranet portals
• Initial page, structuring according to employee tasks
• Search
• Presenting news
• Discussion boards and community
• CMS usability
• HR applications
• International collaboration, design unification, and country sites
• Development process for intranet redesigns
• Coordinating division-level and enterprise-level design
• Integrating two separate intranets into a single design
• Getting employees to post updates to the intranet

Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary
• International Intranets
• Long Development Times, But no Big Bang
• Killer Applications and One-Stop Shopping
• CMS Usability
• Mobile Intranet
• We Own the Design
2. Selection Criteria and Process
   • Initial Design Reviews
   • Follow-up Interviews
   • Rating, Sorting, and More Thorough Design Reviews
3. Common Themes Among the Winners
4. ABB and BEKK Consulting
   • Using the Intranet
   • Design Team
   • Summary Description of the Intranet
   • Background
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons learned
5. BellSouth Corporation
   • Using the Intranet
   • Design Team
   • Summary Description of the Intranet
   • Background
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons learned
6. Credit Suisse Financial Services and Crealogix AG
   • Using the Intranet
   • Design Team
   • Summary Description of the Intranet
   • Background
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Language issues
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons learned
7. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Eclipse Group
   • Using the Intranet
   • Design Team
   • Summary Description of the Intranet
   • Background
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons learned
8. Lonely Planet Publications
   • Using the Intranet
   • Design Team
   • Summary Description of the Intranet
   • Background
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons learned
9. Mira Network AB
   • Using the Intranet
   • Design Team
   • Summary Description of the Intranet
   • Background
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons learne
10. Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance
    • Using the Intranet
    • Design Team
    • Summary Description of the Intranet
    • Background
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Timeline
    • Results
    • Lessons learned
11. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc
    • Using the Intranet
    • Design Team
    • Summary Description of the Intranet
    • Background
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Timeline
    • Results
    • Lessons learned
12. Washington Mutual, Inc. and Towers Perrin
    • Using the Intranet
    • Design Team
    • Summary Description of the Intranet
    • Background
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Timeline
    • Results
    • Lessons learned
13. World Bank Group and Satyam Computer Services
    • Using the Intranet
    • Design Team
    • Summary Description of the Intranet
    • Background
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Timeline
    • Results
    • Lessons learned
14. Recommendations for the Intranet Design Process
15. Intranets Not Selected: Common Issues
16. About the Authors

How Can We Sell This Report So Cheaply?

Despite investing half a year's effort and the work of several of the world's most experienced usability professionals in the project, we are selling the report at a dramatically lower price than other companies who put much less work into their reports. Why?

• On the Internet, the economics of intellectual property change: since there are almost no distribution costs (and no sales costs except this website), it makes more sense to aim to sell a large number of copies at a low price than a small number of copies at a high price (as one would do in the traditional world of high expenses for sales and distribution).
• We want to reach a large number of readers: we are fed up with the poor state of intranet usability.

Our only plea is that you help us continue publishing low-price reports by buying a site license if you have colleagues who will read the report. If you only need it for yourself, then that's obviously what the single-user license is for. If somebody "gives" you a copy, then please buy a download anyway to keep prices down in the future.

Who Should Read This Report?

Sector-Specific Intranets:
> Financial Services
> Technology Companies
> Manufacturing Industry
> Retail Sector
> Knowledge-Intensive
> Government Agencies

Intranet Portals
Report from the trenches.

Intranet Information Architecture (IA)
Analysis of 56 companies' IA.

User Research and Intranet Design Guidelines
For this series of 10 reports, we tested 27 intranets with real employees from each company to find out what worked and didn't work across a broad set of intranet designs.

• Check
• Bank transfer
• Purchase orders
• Faxed or mailed credit cards

We can also send you a paper invoice if your company requires that.

> in-house seminar for your intranet team
> public tutorial at our next usability conference

We can conduct a usability review of your intranet.