50% of top 10 intranets in 2008 using SharePoint

Nielsen Norman top 10 intranets report published.

Marketing Manager Andrew Kerry-Bedell reviews the report

Each year Nielsen Norman Group requests submissions from all organisations that have implemented a new Intranet. Nielsen Norman decide on the global top 10 intranets and provide an extensive report detailing their findings, plus observations on trends to help improve all communication and collaboration Intranets.

Intranet Trends, their 2009 report, has just been released. The report reviews the designs and usability of ten intranets that were chosen from a much larger number of nominated designs. Key winning criteria for the top ten best intranets include a quality review of intranet look and feel, usability and functionality.

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 and development process, and how the new design compared with the previous design.

Key trends from the Nielsen Norman Group report:

• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 was utilised by half of the winning intranets
• Intranet platforms are becoming increasingly integrated with other IT systems
• Intranets are getting more strategic, with increased user collaboration support
• Improving intranet usability increased use by 106% on average
• Intranet team size is growing by 12% per year, reflecting the increasing importance of intranets

Key areas of intranet best practice highlighted in the report are:

Intranet Content

• Intranet branding
• Company and industry news
• Staff directory and employee profile pages
• Corporate calendars
• Personalisation, customisation and alerts
• New employee induction area

Intranet Development

• Consistent navigation
• Employee self service
• Editorial control of the intranet homepage
• Multi-level internal and external information search
• Multilingual intranets supporting international employees
• Data visualisation and multimedia and video on intranets
• Web 2.0 and community features on intranets
• Polls, collaboration tools, discussion boards and internal wikis
• CEO blogging and employee and department weblogs
• Web analytics for intranets

Intranet Processes

• Process and methodology to keep the intranet up to date
• Integrating internal and external information sources
• Development process for intranet redesigns
• Intranet budgets and staffing and corporate governance
• Staffing of intranet teams where they report in the organisation
• Promoting new intranet features
• Working with external design agencies
• Updating and maintaining standards and guidelines for intranet design

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