Summary

The ten winning intranets are:

• Banco Español de Crédito (Banesto), the third largest bank in Spain
• Cisco Systems, the world's leading computer networking vendor (U.S.)
• Electrolux, the world's largest manufacturer of powered appliances (Sweden)
• The Integer Group, the seventh largest promotional marketing agency (U.S.)
• NedTrain, the Dutch National Railway's maintenance subsidiary (The Netherlands)
• Orbis Technology, a small software developer (U.K.)
• Park Place Dealerships, operator of ten luxury automobile dealerships (U.S.)
• Procter & Gamble, a leading manufacturer of branded consumer goods (U.S.)
• Schematic, an interactive design and technology agency (U.S.)
• Verizon Communications, a leading telecommunications company (U.S.)

Most of the intranets represent big companies with large amounts of documents and mission-critical applications such as sales force support. 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.

> Read Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: main trends in this design annual
> See sample chapter as thumbnails
> 2005 Intranet Design Awards: Learn more about the winning teams
 

Best Practices

• Encouraging employees to self-publish content
• Keeping the intranet up-to-date
• Supporting factory-floor employees
• Collaborating with clients through an extranet
• Customer relationship management
• Consistent navigation
• Multilingual intranets; supporting international employees
• Online video; executive communications
• Collaboration tools and discussion boards
• E-learning features on intranets
• Intranet as driver for corporate culture and to promote corporate values
• Wiki systems on intranets
• Intranet search
• Development process for intranet redesigns
• Promoting intranet launches; campaigns to encourage use of new features
• Staffing of intranet teams; where they report in the organization
• Updating and maintaining standards and guidelines for intranet design

Table of Contents

235 page report with 116 screenshots

1. Executive Summary
   • The Winners
   • Advanced Design Concepts
   • Beyond the Office
   • Internationalization
   • Technology Confusion
   • Design Process
   • Improvement Metrics
2. Overview of the Winners
3. Common Themes Among the Winners
   • Kiosks for Intranet Access are Becoming Commonplace
   • Good news
   • Video and TV
   • Adding and Editing Content
4. Banco Español de Crédito (Banesto)
   • Summary
   • 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
5. Cisco Systems, Inc.
   • Summary
   • 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
6. The Electrolux Group
   • Summary
   • 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. The Integer Group
   • Summary
   • 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. NedTrain
   • Summary
   • 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. Orbis Technology
   • Summary
   • 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. Park Place Dealerships
    • Summary
    • 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. Procter & Gamble
    • Summary
    • 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. Schematic
    • Summary
    • 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. Verizon Communications
    • Summary
    • 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
14. Recommendations for the Intranet Design Process
    • Watch People Work
    • Conduct Usability Evaluations
    • Measure ROI
    • Consider Accessibility
    • Encourage Employees to Contribute Content
15. Intranets Not Selected: Common Issues
    • Homepages Cluttered With Sometimes Useless Information
    • Lack of News, or Uninspiring News
    • Inconsistent Design or Wildly Inconsistent Navigation Across The Intranet
16. Selection Criteria and Process

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 can sell the report at a dramatically lower price than other companies who put much less work into their reports, because we distribute it over the Web, with a much leaner cost structure than having an army of salespeople to schmooze you.

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.