34 Ideas for Promoting Your Intranet

The promotion of an intranet is never-ending. From the day it's launched, through to its eventual retirement, an intranet must be constantly advertised to staff. Without this, many staff will remain unaware that the intranet even exists. Others won't recognise the full value of the intranet, or use anything but a tiny corner of the site. This article outlines 34 ideas for promoting an intranet, ranging from the obvious through to the very unusual. Somewhere in this list should be a few approaches that you can apply to your own intranet.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Alternative Ways to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Intranet Sites

When you measure hits on inter/intranet sites, you are measuring overall volume of usage -- how many times parts of your site have been opened. However, hits don't distinguish between the opening of an entire page or a single illustration. There are many additional ways of measuring usage. However, measuring the "userability" of a site is just as important in order to improve usage numbers. But the first place any communicator should start when measuring the effectiveness of electronic communications is to identify the original objectives for putting something on-line. Conducting some baseline audience research upfront to make sure your electronic solutions will be as effective as possible and then measuring afterward to see if the intended objectives are being met.

Sinickas, Angela D. Sinickas Communications (2000). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Log Analysis

Anatomy of a Corporate Intranet Project  

Today more and more companies use intranets to communicate with employees and to help them perform their jobs. An intranet is an internal network that operates like the Internet.

Rhines, Becky. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

Applying Brand To An Intranet

Brand has become an integral part of the employee communicator's role as organizations recognize the importance of employee behaviors in building brand. When it comes time to integrate brand elements into the intranet or portal, good usability practices and testing can guide that integration, ensuring desired employee behaviors.

Wilson, Stacy and Susan Weinschenk. Communication World Bulletin (2003). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

Best Practices For Successful Intranets

Thinking big in the first phase of intranet planning is the nature of e-business, but then it's time to start asking the tough questions. One needs to figure out where the business goals and the user goals need to meet in order to create an intranet that offers the most value.

Barnes, Hank. Intranet Journal (2001). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Best Practices: A Case Study at Kohler  

The plumbing division of Kohler Co. is no stranger to managing their content. They had been using BroadVision's document-management system, Relation Document Manager (RDM), for three years and authoring in Interleaf since 1989. But when BroadVision stopped supporting RDM, Mark Peterson, the technical publications manager at Kohler, was desperate to find a replacement. BroadVision offered BladeRunner, but that tool didn't sufficiently support the heavy and stringent print requirements of Mark's department. Plumbers don't always have adequate or readily available access to the Internet.

Hedlund, Tina. ComTech Services (2003). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Case Studies

The Canonical Intranet Homepage

In recent years, intranet homepages have become very similar in their basic layout. Intranets that look the same can nonetheless differ drastically in usability due to different features and content.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Usability

Caught in the Web: An Intranet Adventure  

As the World Wide Web rapidly evolves, as philosophies for designing online documents change, and as technologies grow ever more sophisticated the technical communicator is presented with many challenges. What are the most eflective methods for structuring, authoring and maintaining online documents? What are the best tools and formats to use for the construction of a documentation Web site? What kinds of technical decisions must the designer or writer make? HTML or PDF? GIF or JPEG? Can several text and graphics formats be combined into one seamless site? What about hypertext links - how many is too many? What is the best approach to building a prototype? Presenting it to users? Selling it to management? Many lessons can be learned before embarking on the journey. , .

Cluff, Susan C. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Web Design>Intranets

Choosing an Intranet Project Sponsor

Numerous surveys across a diverse range of IT projects have identified that the lack of support from senior management (project sponsorship) is one of the biggest causes of project failure. This briefing explores the need for a project sponsor, the role they need to play, and how to choose one.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2004). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Collaboration

Controlling Access to an Extranet

The only real difference today among an extranet, an intranet, and a public Web site is how and when users can access the site. Intranets are often on private networks, and extranets are occasionally, as well; but today's robust access-control mechanisms make private networks less and less essential to providing secure access to either an extranet or an intranet. On the other hand, password-protecting portions of a public Web site is becoming more and more common, and isn't a password-protected Web site the same thing as an extranet?

Bloomberg, Jason. Intranet Journal. Design>Web Design>Intranets>Workplace

Corporate Intranets: Your Job is Never Over  

A corporate intranet is an effective tool for bi-directional information sharing. At last year’s STC conference we discussed how to build a successful intranet. Once you’ve built your intranet, your job is by no means over. Now you must maintain it and ensure that it becomes a part of your company’s corporate culture. To ensure this you must give attention to 1) the information, 2)-site design, 3) marketing and 4) support. We’ll discuss and demonstrate things you can do in these 4 areas to ensure that users continue to have successful experiences with your corporate Intranet.

Gordon, Michele and Brett Fielo. STC Proceedings (1999). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Designing a Different Kind of Intranet: An Intranet for a UX Team

Most of us who are working as part of a design team in a services company, a product company, or even a design boutique have to live with a generic intranet. In this article, I’ll describe how to leverage your company’s intranet and how to build a community around an intranet for a UX team.

Mallik, Anirban Basu. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Intranets

Designing a Web Site for a Corporate Intranet  

Offers suggestions for creating an effective corporate intranet.

Dick, David J. Intercom (2004). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Designing an Effective Intranet/Extranet  

The Internet created a revolution in electronic documentation. Now corporations are creating intranets (internal networks) and extranets (secured Internets for customer use) for the distribution and access of corporate documentation, manuals, and training using Internet technology. You’ll learn how to determine what should go on your intranet/extranet, how to ensure information meets users needs, and how to design effective electronic materials.

Rockley, Ann. STC Proceedings (1998). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Developing a Departmental Intranet Site: From Fantasy to Reality  

If you are considering or planning an intranet site, you know it can be an overwhelming experience. Given all the hype around the World Wide Web and HTML these days, it's easy to become overwhelmed--we were too. We were given the task of developing an intranet site for our department. We lost sight of the fact that, as technical writers, we are skilled at learning new tools and new technology and we are trained to present information in an effective manner. There will always be new tools and technology, but the process of good information design remains the same.

De Jong, Karen, Elizabeth DeDreu and Sharon Gray. STC Proceedings (1998). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Developing Intranets Which People Use: Making Progress When Everyone has an Opinion

The goal of an intranet site is to improve knowledge sharing and productivity. In a large company, it can be difficult to achieve consensus on how to make this happen. Knowledge management experts, information systems project managers, graphic designers, marketing leaders, HTML developers and usability engineers are used to fighting for their places, convinced that they know best. In truth, the intranet is not yet mature, and there are no definite answers. This chapter describes experiences with the intranet sites of two Fortune 500 companies. In both cases, the usability engineer was a consultant from outside the company, in one case part of a team of consultants and in the other working more closely with company employees. Both intranet projects were riddled with mishaps, bad decisions, personality conflicts, and compromises. Still, the usability engineers were able to improve the sites by becoming members of the project teams, and by tirelessly incorporating usability in everything they did.

Zukor, Lee. ACM (2001). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Usability

Dix Bonnes Raisons pour ne pas Réussir Votre Intranet

Construire un intranet, cela semble simple et pourtant l'expérience nous montre que les écueils sont nombreux. Manque de cohérence, communication mal adaptée, mauvaise ergonomie, manque d'implication du management risquent de transformer l'intranet en un patchwork sans cohérence, ni ligne directrice, que les salariés finissent par ne plus utiliser.

Foliot, Catherine. Usabilis (2004). (French) Design>Web Design>Intranets>Usability

Drawing Clear Lines Between Information Systems

In many organisations, the intranet competes with e-mail, file shares, the document management system and records management. Information is scattered between these systems, making it difficult for users to know where to look. What is needed is a clear policy about when these information systems should be used, and what they are for.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Enterprise Portals Are Popping

A usability analysis of 23 intranet portals finds strong growth, increasing collaboration features, and cross-functional governance.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Usability

Escaping the Organisation Chart on Your Intranet

At the core of the structure of many intranets is the organisation chart. This is not surprising as many intranets grow organically with little central control. Business teams create their own areas on the intranet, include information about what they do, and disseminate it to their internal clients. This article outlines practical ways to move from an intranet based on the organisation chart to one that is more intuitive and allows people to complete their tasks more easily.

Maurer, Donna. Step Two (2003). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Five Minute Intranet Self-Evaluation

How well is your intranet working, and is it meeting business needs? These are the fundamental questions facing many intranets. Having grown organically for years, most intranets are now suffering from major structural and content issues. This briefing presents a simple checklist that will allow you to judge just how much work will be required to bring your intranet back to top performance. Work through this checklist, and tick all those statements that apply to your intranet.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Design>Web Design>Intranets

Five Ways to Identify Intranet Usability Issues

Many intranets are under-used. Intranet managers lament the low use and discuss how to get staff to 'use the intranet more', resulting in marketing and promotions activities to increase use.

Maurer, Donna. Step Two (2004). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Usability