Step Two Designs

Avoid structuring the intranet to match today’s business units, and think twice about ‘my’.

Policies and procedures are important information, and they need to be easily found and used on the intranet.

Intranet redesigns involve a huge amount of work, so how do we make this the last big redesign that’s needed?

All intranets must find a balance between global (common) and local (specific) information.

Tree testing provides a cheap and effective way of checking draft navigation before proceeding further into a redesign.

When should online card sorting be used, and how to make the most of it as a research technique?

Intranets filled with ‘blah blah’ landing pages can make it impossible for staff to find what they need.

Understanding common and important staff tasks underpins every aspect of intranet design and management.

Can we replace our intranet homepages with a Google-inspired search page?

When designing and structuring intranets, it is useful to distinguish between core content, and business-unit specific information.

Intranet projects are challenging, and it’s easy for teams to fall into common traps that can undo the good work being done.

The ‘three clicks rule’ is perhaps the most widely known web design principle, but it’s a myth.

Over the years, we have published a vast amount of information on intranets. In this article, we attempt to wrap up all the activities that form part of an intranet design (or redesign) into one concise checklist.

A lot of confusion surrounds the term ‘information architecture’ (IA). This article explores the various labels that might be used to describe IA work.

The field of information architecture (IA) has much to offer those creating taxonomies, including a range of structured techniques for testing their effectiveness.

We all know we should involve users when redesigning a website, but where do you start? Talking with staff in your own organisation allows you to leverage their vast body of knowledge on your website audience.

Usability and information architecture (IA) are core areas of expertise for intranet teams, and all organisations should take steps to build this expertise internally.

It is not enough to focus an intranet redesign on just the home page, global navigation and page layout.

This article explains a quick and effective technique for assessing whether your home page is an effective gateway to site content.

Rather than embarking on a major project at the first sign of problems, consider tactical solutions such as the redesign of the home page.

There is a worrying trend emerging in the field of information architecture: organisations are attempting to finalise site structures without evaluating their effectiveness in the context of a web page.

This article introduces information architecture and provides guidelines for how to create an effective information architecture.

Using a ‘strawman’ design in the early stages of a project can help to overcome many of the difficulties in the design process.

FaCS applied user-centred techniques in the redevelopment of their large Government intranet, and it serves as a useful model for other organisations looking to tackle the same issues.

Card sorting is a simple user-centered technique for obtaining insight into the structure of a site.

Escaping an organisational structure for your intranet is not easy, but will deliver many business benefits.

The technique of ‘card based classification evaluation’ provides a practical (and rapid) approach for testing a prototype site structure.

Card sorting is a very simple method of working with users to come up with a usable information design. A valuable tool for all information architects.