Intranet Usability Guidelines: Findings from User Testing of 42 Intranets Vol. 09: Managing the Intranet and Teams

Part of the Intranet Usability Guidelines Series

Having clear goals, the right technology deployed well, and a fair-sized staff isn't just good governance, it's a winning recipe for a great intranet. But teams can work around any situation if they know how. Good templates, standards, and examples are invaluable, as is planning for organizational growth and change. Get a checklist of specific issues that can improve the governance of your intranet and your intranet team.

This 98-page report contains 29 recommendations based on our usability research. Discussions and 36 screenshot illustrations supplement the findings.

Topics

• Getting support for intranet projects
  • Funding, monetary resources
  • Non-monetary help
  • Management support
  • Staff
• Supporting the organization's tasks and culture
  • Intranet teams in the organizational context
  • Roles of team members
• Planning and strategy for design and features
  • Cost benefit analysis of features
  • Defining intranet goals
  • Recommended design process for implementing new features
  • Third-party solutions
• Most popular intranet features
  • The anti killer-app: Unpopular features
  • Taking inventory to improve the intranet
• Deriving guidelines and standards
  • Templates
  • Best practices for your organization

Research Method

The information in these reports is based on three separate rounds of user research with company employees as participants. We used two different research methods:

• One-on-one usability testing
• Field studies, during which we observed employees as they went about their normal work

Hundreds of people tested 42 intranets. The studies took place in the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, United Arab Emirates, and China (Hong Kong).

In addition, this report includes findings from data obtained from surveys given out at multiple Nielsen Norman Group Usability Week conferences to intranet designers.