Design matters? It sure does!

Someone quite well known in the intranet world recently said that design matters less and less on intranets.

I have to say I wholeheartedly disagree.

We launched new design templates across all our four Operating Companies' intranets in the UK earlier this year. It was a fairly short project and didn't cost a fortune. The design launch was accompanied by a quick poll where we asked people if they liked it. 172 people completed the poll, and although it was nice to see that the majority voted positively it was actually more useful to read the comments that some people left with their vote.

I divided the comments into categories and its easy to see what makes people tick:

• Colours 34%
• Navigation 6% (considering that the new design didn't alter the navigation it was interesting that some people felt it had improved!)
• Browser 6%
• Other, incl. general well done comments and questions 54%

Several people said it was good to see that the company wants to move our systems on with the times - as one person said "Facebook and the BBC do it all the time, so why shouldn't we internally?"

Intranets are here to serve the business, it's for the employees. Employees are interested in design. So design matters. I'm not saying it's more important than all the other important things (like content and navigation) but it is important.

Rant over.

HR - friend or foe?

I was at an intranet conference here in London yesterday where I talked about some of the work our team have done on the intranet in the last few months.

One of our mini projects was a complete overhaul of all the information in the employee handbook including a review of the information architecture that supports this area. During my little talk I said that it is a nightmare to work with HR. I could feel the atmosphere change as soon as the words left my lips, and throughout the day different people referred to my comment. I would just like to clarify why I said what I said.

I have worked for a variety of public and private sector organisations. And when working with HR teams on intranet matters I have come across the same barriers time and time again.

HR teams want all or nothing. It's like this:

Scenario #1:

Intranet team: Hey HR - we would like to work with you to improve the way your content is presented on the intranet.
HR: We're quite happy with it as it is thanks.

Scenario #2:

Intranet team: Hey HR - We would like to work with you to improve the way your content is presented on the intranet.
HR: Yes, well we have been waiting for you to get in touch. What we think is that policy X, Y and Z should under a heading called "Benefits" and A, B and C should.....

There seem to be only two options for them. They either don't want to change anything. Or they are desperate to change stuff, but they are the experts on how it should be changed.

IMHO content and IAs can only be reviewed successfully if the actual users are involved. There are lots of ways of doing this.

Interviews, open/closed card sorting, contextual enquiries, surveys, mix and match them as they suit the organisation. But under no circumstances should any IA be determined solely by the business owner, or an intranet team.

That said, I can sort of understand why HR is reluctant to ask user's opinions - they're just not used to it. They deal with policies, contracts and other non-flexible work. But they need to move with the times. And fortunately it seems that, once they understand the power of involving users, HR teams are collaborative and a pleasure to work with.

For more related information on this subject read Kurt's (IntraTeam) discussion on LinkedIn: Our Members say that HR don't get the intranet - why?

Devolved publishing models

Most companies use a devolved publishing model for their intranet content. But does it actually work? Do we end up with good content?

In the company I work for we also use devolved publishing. And we have an ongoing publisher engagement programme in which we try very hard to upskill our publishers and keep them up to date with new developments in the world of the web. But the reality is that our publishers all have a day job - and that's not their publishing role. This is just a small part of it. So are we expecting too much from them?

We have about 300 publishers in the company of roughly 11,000 employees. We have good uptake on our lunch and learn events and we frequently receive positive feedback form our publisher e-zine. So people are definitely interested in improving their content, but we see little evidence that this actually happens on the intranet.

When employees initially approach us to become a publisher we ask them and their line manager to sign up to the publisher agreement. But the manager needs to understand that writing good content measn that the employee needs to spend some time on this task.

Is the devolved publishing model just a method of ignoring the fact that good content is created by trained writers, and employing them costs money? Money which organisation don't want to, or can't, invest in their intranets.

As Gerry McGovern says - Spend ten minutes on your content and the user will need one hour to decipher it. But spend one hour writing your content and the user will need ten minutes to read it.

Fantastic! Now we just need to roll this thinking out to our time poor publishers...

Private vs public sector intranets - a great divide?

"Intranets in the private sector are always better because they have more money."

Over the last eight years or so I have worked for various private companies and Government departments. While working in the public sector my colleagues always told me that we shouldn't compare Government intranets with those in the private sector because 'they have loads of money to spend on making their intranets the best'.

I used to take this at face value. But in my opnion this is actually not a valid point, in fact the opposite is often true.

Government teams generally have an allocated annual budget and if a new department wide project is launched they apply to a central pot to funding. It just doesn't work that way in the private sector. Teams submit their project plans for the following year and if they are approved funding is provided. There is simply no option to add on new projects after this point, and if projects are delayed budget is often moved to other teams who have shortfalls.

In summary, it's not all about money. You can't just throw money at an intranet to make it good. But do this and you're on to a winner (in no particular order):

• Good content
• Strong governance
• Supportive senior management
• Innovative intranet team
• In house developer(s)