11 January 2008
Nielsen names top 10 intranets 2008
Surprise inclusions for round-up of the year's best intranet sites.
Intranet sites from government agencies in Australia and New Zealand have been recognized in the 2008 Nielsen Intranet awards.
Standing alongside intranet sites from global organizations including airline operator, British Airways, homeware retailer, IKEA (US) and book retailer, Barnes & Noble, the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Australia and the Ministry of Transport, New Zealand “strongly represent” the southern hemisphere in what is traditionally a US-centric Top 10 list.
Up-and-coming countries
Half of the winners are from the US, closely matching the nation's long-term performance average of 53%. The remaining 5 winners hail from 5 different countries. The southern hemisphere is strongly represented this year, including the first-ever winner from New Zealand.
Australia has had many winners over the years, as have the UK and Germany. Spain seems to be an up-and-coming country in terms of quality intranets, with Bankinter S.A. collecting Spain's third award (earlier awards went to Amadeus Global Travel Distribution in 2003 and Banco Español de Crédito [Banesto] in 2005).
Why Bank of America is #1
Bank of America collected detailed measurements of the time required to navigate from the homepage to 11 different intranet destinations. After its intranet redesign, the average time decreased from 43.6 seconds to 21.7 seconds, cutting the navigation time in half.
This corresponds to a 101% increase in post-redesign productivity, because users can get slightly more than twice as much done in the same time.
Size isn’t everything and a small but well-focused effort can produce a great intranet.
Many of the most important features on the winning intranets directly support everyday work. At British Airways, employee self service is the intranet's main focus and the team backs it with a profusion of tools.
Focusing in people and service
This year the award winners were endorsed having, “focused on productivity tools, employee self-service, access to knowledgeable people (as opposed to "knowledge management"), and better-presented company news.”
Most of the winning designs are traditional, companywide intranets, but IKEA won for its regional intranet covering North America.
Real estage agency, Coldwell Banker's intranet works somewhat like an extranet: it connects 3,800 independently owned and operated residential and commercial real estate offices, while appearing to users as a local office intranet rather than a corporate intranet.
Interestingly, this year, the only technology sector winner is SAP, when usually the technology industry produces many winners due to their "above-average sophisitication in using technology," says the Nielsen report on this year's list.
Smaller companies make the grade
The Ministry of Transport, New Zealand, was further recognized for its success in a small organization, with just over 200 intranet users. In comparison, the average number of users for other winners was 50,000.
Coldwell Banker's intranet connects 3,800 independently owned and operated residential and commercial real estate offices.
Award organizer and web expert, Jakob Nielsen, said the New Zealand example was proof that, “Size isn’t everything and a small but well-focused effort can produce a great intranet.”
What are this year's intranet trends?
The following trends were apparent:
- Increased personalization.
- Integration of information sources, often resulting in a single "one-stop shopping" page.
- Emphasis on mission-critical applications and information (such as sales targets).
- Improved event and project calendars.
- Special sections to help orient new employees.
- Prominent display of stock quotes and other financial information
Integration of external and company news, often in the form of customizable feeds. - Integration of alerts with the main intranet to inform users of important messages.
- Redesigned and improved search features, which often went from horrible to good and generated ecstatic user feedback.
An Intranet Design Annual with 212 screenshots of the 10 winners for 2008 is available for download.
Related articles and resources:
5 intranet coaching tactics from IKEA North America
Extending the reach of the Intranet at British Airways and Boots
Have your say
What innovative methods have you used to develop your intranet? Do you need ideas for further enhancing your employee website? Discuss these issues with other comms practitioners by joining the Internal Comms Hub members' group on the Communicators' Network.
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