Summary

The ten winning intranets are:

• Amadeus Global Travel Distribution, Spain
• ChevronTexaco
• Design Matters, Inc., a Web design agency
• FIGG Engineering Group, a consultancy specializing in bridges
• Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Germany
• Landor Associates, a brand strategy consultancy
• Mayo Clinic, a non-profit medical center
• North Tyneside College, U.K.
• United States Coast Guard
• Wachovia Corporation, the 5th largest bank in the United States

silverorange of Canada was awarded an honorable mention for an excellent redesign of a previously winning intranet.

Most of the intranets represent big companies with large amounts of documents and mission-critical applications such as customer relationship management. But some of the winning designs represent small knowledge-intensive companies, proving that great intranet usability can be found in a wide variety of places.

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. The report also contains a smaller case study of silverorange's redesign, updating the chapter on this intranet in the 2001 design annual.

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

Best Practices

• Workflow support
• Integration of intranets and extranets
• Simplifying page templates and driving unified design through the company
• Consistent navigation
• Encouraging employees to self-publish content
• Integration of intranet with real-time mobile notification
• Merging two intranets as a result of a corporate merger
• Reducing the amount of email in a company by making the intranet supplant email for some uses
• Collaboration tools and discussion boards
• Intranet as driver for corporate culture and to promote corporate values
• Development process for intranet redesigns
• Coordinating division-level and enterprise-level design
• Standards and guidelines for intranet design
• Supporting users in overseas offices
• Efficient access to libraries of knowledge assets
• Communicating personality, excitement, and human interest through intranet news

Table of Contents

175 page report with 97 screenshots

1. Executive Summary
   • The Winners
   • Mergers can Produce Good Intranets
   • Workflow Support
   • Self-Service Content Management
   • Enforced or Guided Consistency
   • Technology Platform
   • Design Process
   • Improvement Metrics
2. Selection Criteria and Process
   • Initial Design Reviews and Numeric Rankings
   • Follow-up Questions with Top Thirty
   • Design Sorting and Thorough Design Review
   • Follow-up Interviews with Top Ten
3. Overview of the Winners
4. Common Themes Among the Winners
   • Clean Design
   • Workflow Emphasis
   • News
   • Organizational Approach
   • Focus on Intranet Benefits
   • Focus on Content Management
   • Accessibility
   • Other Trends
5. Amadeus Global Travel Distribution
   • URL and Access
   • Content Management
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Basic Intranet Features
   • Users
   • User Tasks
   • Background
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons Learned
6. ChevronTexaco and Dimension Data Holdings
   • URL and Access
   • Content Management
   • Technology
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Basic Intranet Features
   • Users
   • User Tasks
   • Background
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons Learned
7. Design Matters, Inc.
   • URL and Access
   • Content Management
   • Technology
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Basic Intranet Features
   • Users
   • User Tasks
   • Background
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons Learned
8. FIGG Engineering Group
   • URL and Access
   • Content Management
   • Technology
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Basic Intranet Features
   • Users
   • User Tasks
   • Background
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons Learned
9. Fujitsu Siemens Computers
   • URL and Access
   • Content Management
   • Technology
   • Goals and Constraints
   • Basic Intranet Features
   • Users
   • User Tasks
   • Background
   • Design Process and Usability Activities
   • Timeline
   • Results
   • Lessons Learned
10. Landor Associates
    • URL and Access
    • Content Management
    • Technology
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Basic Intranet Features
    • Users
    • User Tasks
    • Background
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Timeline
    • Results
    • Lessons Learned
11. Mayo Clinic
    • URL and Access
    • Content Management
    • Technology
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Basic Intranet Features
    • Users
    • User Tasks
    • Background
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Timeline
    • Results
    • Lessons learned
12. North Tyneside College
    • URL and Access
    • Content Management
    • Technology
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Basic Intranet Features
    • Users
    • User Tasks
    • Background
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Timeline
    • Results
    • Lessons Learned
13. silverorange
    • URL and Access
    • Content Management
    • Technology
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Basic Intranet Features
    • Users
    • User Tasks
    • Background
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Results
    • Lessons Learned
14. United States Coast Guard
    • URL and Access
    • Content Management
    • Technology
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Basic Intranet Features
    • Users
    • User Tasks
    • Background
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Timeline
    • Results
    • Lessons learned
15. Wachovia Corporation
    • URL and Access
    • Content Management
    • Technology
    • Goals and Constraints
    • Basic Intranet Features
    • Users
    • User Tasks
    • Background
    • Design Process and Usability Activities
    • Timeline
    • Results
    • Lessons Learned
16. Recommendations for the Intranet Design Process
17. Intranets Not Selected: Common Issues

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.