The classic texts of project management outline the importance of initial planning and design activities. While they only consist of 10-30% of the project, they lay the groundwork for everything to come. This is no different in the world of SharePoint intranets. Quite the contrary: ...
Articles tagged: design
Build upkeep into intranet redesign
Intranet redesigns can be seen as the cure-all for an intranet's ills, and many intranets will certainly benefit from a significant overhaul. But if the redesign has come about due to a lack of focus, general neglect and poor content management, then a redesign alone will not be sufficient to ...
Make SharePoint intranets beautiful
SharePoint is many things, but out of the box, beautiful isn't one of them. The boxy design and shades of blue isn't ugly per-se, but do little to inspire adoption and enthusiasm. It used to be said that it was too hard to make SharePoint beautiful, but the following selection of ...
Ticker tape on the home page
Ticker tapes were developed in the late 1880s for transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines. Nowadays we see electronic ticker tapes on the sides of large buildings or TV screens displaying current news headlines. On intranets, ticker tapes can be used for: emergency information when major disruptions occur such as storms ...
Planning your SharePoint intranet project
Starting a SharePoint intranet project, whether creating a new intranet or redeveloping an existing one, can be daunting. Alongside strategy and design questions are now a myriad of technology decisions, often exploring uncharted territory within the organisation. At a basic level, intranets based on SharePoint are just like every other intranet. ...
Capture the intranet high ground
The introduction of a new technology platform is a two-edged sword for intranets. On the positive side, a good technology solution will bring much-needed improvements and features, both of which can underpin the delivery of a great intranet. On the negative side, ...
Global launch of Designing intranets: creating sites that work
We've been working on this all year, so I'm pleased to be able to finally announce that Designing intranets: creating sites that work is now available for purchase globally. With four times the content of our last book, What every intranet team should know, this is ...
Pre-order your copy of Designing intranets: creating sites that work
Followers of our blog posts and tweats would be aware that I've been working on our next book. Called Designing intranets: creating sites that work, this is the definitive textbook for teams tasked with designing a new intranet, or redesigning an existing site. In 275 pages, this book ...
What attractive intranets look like
The winds of change are blowing for intranets. Every intranet survey run in the wider community has shown that 50% of intranet teams are planning (or hoping) to redesign their sites. With any redesign comes the opportunity for a fresh new look and feel. Drawing their inspiration from the best of ...
My Beautiful Intranet
IBF has just published the results of the informal "My Beautiful Intranet" competition held during IBF24. To quote: We wanted to find the intranet homepage most pleasing to the eye. The incentive of an Ipad as a prize certainly helped the entry numbers, and we received submissions from as far ...
Seeking a better design for intranet news
The design of intranets has been in the forefront of my thinking recently. I've been writing hard on our next book, which is specifically on intranet design (180 pages done, just three chapters to go!). This week's Intranet Leadership Forum workshop in Melbourne also had a session on the ...
Eight intranet design mistakes
Intranet projects are challenging at the best of times. Sites are large and content rich. Project teams are often thrown into the deep end, with many constraints and expectations. Intranet projects may confront challenges such as: unclear intranet ownership and governance tight timeframes limited (and often insufficient) budgets varied (and sometimes competing) stakeholder opinions large number ...
First workshop of the year: Intranet Design + Redesign (Sydney, March 25)
Deliver a best practice intranet that is intuitive and usable for staff If the intranet isn’t easy to use, there’s little point in having one! To design (or redesign) an intranet, we need to put ...
Sketchy wireframes
Aaron Travis writes about the benefits of making wireframes look rough. To quote: When it comes to user interface documentation, wireframes have long been the tool of choice. However, using traditional diagramming tools like Visio, OmniGraffle, and InDesign, most wireframes today look the same as their ancestors did from a ...
A day on intranet design with Victorian councils
Last Friday I spent the day in Melbourne, running an Intranet Design + Redesign workshop for local councils. The in-house workshop was organised by one council, and with other councils invited to join the session. We ended up with about 24 people in the room representing 15 different councils ...
Seven roles of the intranet homepage
There is no more contested or challenging page on the intranet than the homepage. As it is the most visible page on the site, everyone wants their piece of the homepage. There is also contention about the role of the intranet homepage: Should the homepage be mostly about news? Is navigation the ...
Ready for the world-premier in London of our “Intranet design + redesign” workshop
Phew! It's been a busy week, and I'm glad to finally be on a plane to Europe. One of the bigger projects was putting the finishing touches to our brand-new Intranet design + redesign workshop. I've been running intranet strategy workshops for years now. They've run in over a dozen countries ...
Brand new workshop: intranet design + redesign (Sydney, 21 October 2009)
We've been working with intranet teams for years now, as well as writing articles and running workshops around the globe. Something that's been on our to-do list for ages now has been to create ...
Paper prototyping
Shawn Medero has written an article on paper prototyping. To quote: As interfaces become ever more complex and development schedules seem to get shorter and shorter, you may find it useful to give up your user-interface modeling software for awhile in favor of something simpler. All you need is paper, ...
New book: What every intranet team should know
This blog has been a bit quiet over the last few months due to some hard work on two seriously exciting projects. The first is a new book, released today. Over the last eight years, we've published 200+ articles covering every aspect ...
Beware of using opinions to design an intranet
I've just settled back in from my most recent conference tour, and I've spent a lot of time talking with intranet teams from a wide variety of organisations, across three continents. Based on the types of approaches I've seen to intranet designs, I'm going to state: Beware of using opinions to ...
