#19989
The Role of an Intranet Information Architect 
A web site’s information architecture is a model of the relationship between information objects in the site; it is the aspect of web design that makes information retrieval more effective and easier to do. The Information Architect (IA) on a web development team focuses on developing the information architecture but also performs a number of related tasks such as gathering and analyzing requirements, performing usability tests, creating production templates, and creating the business strategy of the web site. This paper provides information about these tasks from a case study of the intranet development at Guidant Corporation.
Vaughn, Joan E. and Deidre Hayes. STC Proceedings (1999). Design>Information Design>Intranets>Web Design
#31513
Seven Steps to Employee Portal Nirvana (Or at Least a Portal That Really Works)
Confusing. Frustrating. Underutilized. Time-consuming. If you are like most communicators, these are just some of the words that come to mind when thinking about your organization’s employee portal. Intranets and employee portals have long been plagued by numerous challenges, including limited funding, poor navigation, content overload and changing technology. Add in growing user expectations, disengaged executives and differing opinions about what portals are and how they deliver tangible value, and it’s no wonder they are such sore spots for communicators.
Rudnick, Michael. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Business Communication
#28091
Intranet Information Architecture (IA)
In analyzing 56 intranets, we found many common top-level categories, labels, and navigation designs, but ultimately, the diversity was too great to recommend a single IA.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>Intranets
#12998
A Solid Intranet in Eight Steps
Corporate intranets are old news—everyone has one. But have you ever stepped back and wondered whether your intranet is cost-effective? Or, whether it increases your company's productivity? Have you ever asked your corporate users if they like it? For that matter, do they even use it? Because intranets have become commonplace, it's easy to assume they're well designed and usable. Unfortunately, most intranets have grown undirected and unchecked, like weeds in a garden. To dispel the myth that good intranet design just happens, let's look at the rules that my colleagues and I follow when we design corporate intranets.
Mandel, Theo. WebTechniques (2001). Design>Web Design>Intranets
#29156
In this article, we present a usability experiment in which participants were asked to make intensive use of information on an intranet in order to execute job-related tasks. Participants had to work with one of two versions of an intranet: one with an organization-based hyperlink structure, and one with a task-based hyperlink structure. Efficiency and effectiveness were measured in terms of execution time and task accuracy, respectively. After the task execution, participants were asked to evaluate the task as well as the intranet. The results show that participants perform more efficiently with the organization-based structure, which is probably due to their familiarity with this structure. A post hoc analysis revealed, however, a learning effect in the task condition, which suggests that once users are acquainted with it, a task structure is at least as efficient.
Cozijn, Reinier, Alfons Maes, Didie Schackman and Nicole Ummelen. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Usability
#31512
Admit it. Your intranet is a mess. What started out as a great idea for sharing information inside the company has turned into the corporate junk drawer—a jumbled collection of useful, not-so-useful, relevant, irrelevant, redundant, inconsistent and unmanaged stuff. While parts of it make you proud (perhaps the employee directory or news portal), taken as a whole, it just hasn’t lived up to all the grand ideas you had when you posted those first few pages.
Stevenson, Jerry. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Information Design
#31485
Targeted Investment: The Key to Employee Portal Improvement
In many organizations, when economic conditions improve, funding becomes available for investment in internal communication technologies. While the potential expansion of budgets is welcome news to communicators around the globe, capitalizing on it requires careful, thoughtful prioritization of still-precious resources. So what type of focused investments should communicators consider? Intranet and employee portal improvements should be high on the list.
Rudnick, Michael. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
#26681
A Technical Communicator’s Role in Planning, Developing, and Maintaining a Corporate Intranet Site
Technical communicators can gain knowledge and expertise in web technology including developing intranet sites, usability engineering, and knowledge management.
Kays, Tami. Orange Journal, The (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
#23518
Redesigning an intranet for usability often more than doubled the use of these award-winning designs from ten public-sector organizations.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Government
#21006
This year's winning intranet designs emphasized workflow support, self-service content management, and offloading tasks from email to collaboration tools. On average, companies spent three years between redesigns, and one year on the redesign itself.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Usability
#11717
Top Ten Intranet Design Mistakes
The creator of the award-winning site Web Pages That Suck and co-author of the book of the same name, lists the top 10 mistakes he's found.
Flanders, Vincent. Intranet Journal. Design>Web Design>Intranets
#31515
Top Ten Tips to Improve Your Intranet Site
Is your intranet failing to deliver value for your company and your staff? If so, time and money are being wasted. Research shows that employees can take twice as long to complete tasks and get information from a poor intranet as compared to one that is well designed. This wasted time can cost over US$1,000 each year, per employee, which translates to a cost of US$1 million for every 1,000 employees. So what can you do to improve your intranet? Here are 10 things to think about.
Gupta, Anu. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
#22855
Training Your Intranet's End-Users and Content-Providers
A technical writer on an intranet team can also play the role of trainer. This paper provides a 'how to' of training end-users and content-providers associated with a web- and PDF-based company intranet. These ideas will be expanded in the session and on the CD-ROM of the Proceedings.
Funkhouser, LaVonna F. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Intranets>Web Design
#31269
Truly Love Your Intranet? Set it Free
If the pace of change in social media and collaborative working continues, intranets as we know them will rapidly become a thing of the past. At the same time, those responsible for corporate intranets need to be sure that past and present investment in the platform pays off. What should they do?
Keohane, Kevin and Mike Williams. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
#23780
Usability Strategies for Intranet Web Site Design
The Intranet brings together Web sites owned by departments, divisions, and individuals across the organisation. It may link local and regional offices, and employees of diverse cultures and languages. The strategy for designing a Web site requires an understanding of the context of use, user and organizational requirements, produce design solutions, and evaluation of design solutions against requirements. If this appears similar to product design – it is. Content, design, consistency and maintenance are essential to quality. If done well, the Web site contributes to the corporate Intranet community. This article looks at important issues to consider when designing a web site for a corporate Intranet.
Dick, David J. STC Proceedings (2003). Design>Web Design>Intranets
#14371
Using the World Wide Web in Your Company’s Own Little World
When a company uses the World Wide Web for internal communication, the web is called an intranetwork, or intranet. Companies are turning to this solution because of a number of advantages. However, as with any change that involves technology and corporate culture, the advantages of an intranet come with several challenges including introducing the intranet successfully, managing it without chaos, getting the employees to use it and use it properly, as well as maintaining the web of corporate information accurately.
Mobley, Karen L. and Julia C. Stovall. STC Proceedings (1997). Presentations>Web Design>Intranets
#22091
The Value of Intranet Feedback
A simple intranet feedback mechanism is an effective way of keeping an intranet up-to-date, and assisting with change management and cultural change processes.
Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Design>Web Design>Intranets
#22060
Within most corporations, taking ownership of an intranet is an unglamorous, exhausting, and thankless job for a new intranet manager. But if approached with the same rigor, discipline, and focus as any other business initiative, the task can quickly become much simpler.
Singh, Shiv. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Design>Web Design>Intranets
#21750
Within most corporations, taking ownership of an intranet is an unglamorous, exhausting, and thankless job for a new intranet manager. But if approached with the same rigor, discipline, and focus as any other business initiative, the task can quickly become much simpler.
Singh, Shiv. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Project Management
#31270
What Will Intranets and Portals Look Like in 2010?
Every year needs its hype topic of choice. In the field of intranets and portals for 2007, the fashion has now been decided: It's the 3-D intranet—some version of Second Life (the virtual digital environment gaining popularity among large corporations) designed for employees. IBM is investing large sums of money looking into what a 3-D intranet might be like, and intranet managers and directors in large organizations are gaining interest in this new possibility.
Miller, Paul. Communication World Bulletin (2008). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
#13079
Why an Intranet Must Constantly be Updated - And Steps to Take to Make Sure It Is
The single most important thing to realize about an intranet is that it is a growing entity. If you wipe your brow in relief after rolling out your intranet and think that that was all there was to it, you are going to be in for a surprise. You should not leave your intranet locked away in some room and hope that it will run itself. Just look at the havoc and mayhem Macaulay Culkin created when he was left home alone. An intranet is no different when left to neglect and mismanagement—only no one will be laughing. An intranet must constantly be updated with new and relevant information so that it does not turn into a pile of yesterday's newspapers.
Chin, Paul. Intranet Journal (2001). Design>Web Design>Intranets
#22671
Since the mid-1990s, the promise of intranets has beckoned. These systems can transcend geographical barriers, offer the information workers need, and churn out answers at any time of day. With them, workers can save valuable time and make better decisions. But less than a decade later, a usability study about research intranets has found that the promise remains largely unfulfilled. Why do intranets fail? How can more usable designs be created? In this article I review usability findings from my company’s recent report, based on the 2001 usability study for Special Libraries Association and conducted at Bechtel Corporation, ChevronTexaco Corporation, Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, Gale Group, Gilead Sciences, Sun Microsystems, and Synopsys.
Head, Alison J. SCIP Online (2003). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
#26147
Some main points submitted by readers about writing for intranets, in quotation marks or paraphrased.
McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Writing
#19154
Worlds Apart: The Difference Between Intranets and Websites
Beyond a common use of HTML, intranets and corporate websites (internet sites) are very different animals. The needs they meet, the content they contain, and the users that access them are all very distinct. These differences need to be understood by site designers, and reflected both in the design process and the final product. This article summarises some of the key differences between intranets and websites.
Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Design>Web Design>Intranets
#33045
Ten Ways to Continuously Improve Your Intranet
The amount of work involved in designing a new intranet or redesigning an existing intranet is minor compared to the time needed to maintain an effective intranet over the longer term. In fact, it is common for the initial excitement of a new intranet to fade away as the reality of day-to-day maintenance and the challenges of improving the intranet become apparent.
Spencer, Donna. Step Two (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
