Giving the intranet a name helps to build its identity, and may even give it a personality within the organisation.

Out of the box, most search engines are poorly designed for the needs of general intranet searchers. Cluttered with complex features, these search tools can…

Staff directories (internal phone directories) can be much more than just a way of looking up contact numbers. In any large or complex organisation, they…

Search doesn’t work out of the box, and up to 80% of the default functionality must be stripped out for general search users.

Some of the greatest value in a staff directory comes from the cross-linking, within the directory and to other resources.

Intranet teams need to carefully manage their time, to ensure that progress is always being made.

Intranet teams need to use their time wisely. It is very easy to fall into the trap of dealing with urgent requests and problems, never actually making any progress. Effective intranet teams must plan up front how they will spend their time to deliver both short term and long term benefits to their organisations. The rule of thumb for intranet resources is: 30% effort for day-to-day maintenance 40% effort for projects and new initiatives 30% effort managing relationships with staff and stakeholders For a team of one this can mean devoting one day a week to managing relationships with staff

The design of public websites, particularly when they have a marketing or branding role, is vital. In these cases, a team of experienced graphic designers and front end developers work hard to create polished and beautiful designs. When it comes to intranets, however, is their 'look and feel' so important? Fundamentally, should intranets look sexy? Design of public sites We are all exposed to the wide range of designs for public sites, from the very ugly to the very beautiful. Major consumer brands have attractive and vibrant home pages, while even technology companies present polished designs. These sites reflect the

There is a lot of work involved in redeveloping and relaunching an intranet or website. The project management challenges start early, and it is easy to overlook the time (and effort) needed to migrate the content from the old to the new site. Yet, for its lack of visibility, content migration is often the single biggest activity in a web redevelopment. Certainly it is the least interesting, and unfortunately unavoidable. This article explores a number of options for the migrating content, and provides some practical suggestions that should help it to go smoothly. Redeveloping a site Two factors often drive

Public-facing websites often have a strong marketing element to them, but do intranets need to be as polished in their design?