Summary

Richly illustrated with 744 color screenshots of real intranets and their navigation design and other IA screen elements.

The report contains detailed profiles of 56 real-world intranets' information architecture as well as generalized analyses and best-practice recommendations derived from these many case studies. This report shows you how real intranets work — it's not speculation or fantasy; it's hard reality.

Our analysis encompassed intranets from a wide range of organizations in 12 countries:

• 33 companies from a variety of industries, including financial services, utilities, and technology
• 11 government agencies
• 5 healthcare providers
• 4 educational institutions
• 3 non-profits

Improve your intranet's IA and you improve the findability of your content and services. The ROI is usually immense, because we almost always find that employees waste inordinate amounts of time being lost on intranets. Fix your IA and people will find what they want faster: higher user satisfaction and higher employee productivity are the results.

> Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox about the report
> Sample section as thumbnails

Because of the many big illustrations, this report is too big for download. Thus, it's only offered on CD-ROM.

Table of Contents

• Volume 1: Examples and Analysis from 56 Intranets
  • 497 pages
  • 378 screenshots
• Volume 2: Navigational Structures and Screenshots from 56 Intranets
  • 696 pages
  • 744 screenshots

Contents of Vol. 1

1. Executive Summary
   • Architecture Without Architects
   • Generalist Tools, Simple Research Methods
   • Common Categories
   • Personalization and Customization
   • Timeless Design
   • Fat Report
2. About This Report
   • Participating Organizations
   • Using This Report
3. Information Architects, Research and Tools
   • Role of Information Architect
   • Research Methods
   • Gathering Ideas and Examples
   • Learning About Users: Field Studies, Diaries and Interviews
   • Establishing a Starting Point: Content Audits and Collecting
   • Feedback
   • Traffic Statistics
   • Gathering Opinions: Surveys
   • Card Sorting
   • User Testing
   • Promoting Good Practices Across the Organization
   • Tools Used
4. Considerations When Planning an Information Architecture
   • Setting Intranet Goals
   • Determining a Site Structure: Task-Based versus Departmental Organization
   • Personalization and Customization
   • Accomodating Multiple Languages
5. Common Information Architecture Problems
6. Navigation, Terminology and Labels
   • Terminology and Labels
   • Common Top-Level Navigational Categories
   • A Starting Point for Top-Level Navigation
7. Elements of Information Architecture
   • Consistent Global Navigation
   • Location In Site
   • Local Navigation (Secondary and Tertiary)
   • Breadcrumbs
   • Quick Links
   • Related Links and Inline Links
   • Consistent Site Experience
   • Section Landing Pages
   • Grouping Similar Information: Forms, Policies and other Content
8. Information Architecture Profiles
   • American Electric Power (AEP)
   • ANZ
   • Baltimore County
   • Birmingham City Council
   • Brady Corporation
   • BT Global Services
   • Capital One
   • Carl Zeiss AG
   • Cisco Systems, Inc.
   • Citizens Advice
   • City of Edinburgh Council
   • City of Ottawa
   • Commonwealth Financial Network
   • CyberTrader
   • The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
   • Department of Education, Tasmania
   • EDS
   • Estradas de Portugal (EP)
   • First Horizon
   • Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
   • Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
   • Halliburton
   • IMS Health
   • Industrial Research Limited (IRL)
   • Inovis
   • JPMorgan Chase
   • Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences (JUA)
   • LandAmerica Financial Group, Inc.
   • Leeds City Council
   • LHS
   • Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
   • Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA)
   • Manulife Financial
   • McDonald's Corporation
   • Nicor, Inc.
   • Northern Digital Inc. (NDI)
   • NorthTec
   • Oakland County, Michigan
   • Philips Medical Systems (PMS)
   • PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
   • Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council (PWSRCAC)
   • Purdue University College of Engineering
   • Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)
   • Shepherd and Wedderburn
   • SimCorp A/S
   • Sonaecom
   • St. Michael's Hospital
   • Swisscom Innovations
   • United States Postal Service (USPS) Accounting
   • University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
   • UTi Worldwide Inc.
   • Vision Service Plan (VSP)
   • Vodafone
   • WestJet Airlines Ltd.
   • Willoughby City Council
   • Winterthur Group
9. Appendix A: Top-Level Navigational Categories by Topic
10. Appendix B: Organizations by Industry and Number of Employees

Contents of Vol. 2

Each profile contains a complete listing of that intranet's IA categories followed by screenshots of its navigation design.

What You Get

• The full IA category hierarchy for all 56 intranets, allowing you to see how they're structured.
• 744 full-color screenshots of the 56 intranet's navigation design and other IA elements: see for yourself the myriad of design details that go into making a good navigation scheme. Mine this treasure-trove of design ideas.
• Detailed analysis of the issues in intranet information architecture, positioning you to vastly improve the findability of your own intranet's content and services.
• Best practices in IA governance for big intranets.

Who Should Read This Report?

• Anybody who is responsible for the information architecture of an intranet.
• Note that you are the person responsible for your intranet's IA if you're in charge of its user experience and don't have a dedicated information architect on your team.

Conducting a similar analysis yourself to collect comparative design lessons from a large number of intranets' IAs would cost a fortune, if you could ever get enough companies to let you in the door. Realistically, reading this report is the only way you will learn about a wide range of intranet IA alternatives.

Please help us continue publishing research 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 what the single-user license is for. If somebody "gives" you a copy, then please buy your own copy anyway to keep prices down in the future.

Buy CD-ROM with both volumes (from Yahoo Store) $396 for a single-user license $796 for a site license (the right to place on your intranet and make unlimited copies within your organization)