I had the pleasure, at the invitation of John Amyotte, Microsoft's Solutions Specialist for Portals, to see Microsoft's very own main intranet portal, microsoftweb. As can be expected, MS is "eating their own dog food" and using their own portal product SharePoint and Windows SharePoint Services to power their internal business hub.

microsoftweb is very well executed and organized and features significant improvements over previous iterations. What stood-out most is the use of personalization and profiling that makes the retrieval and presentation of information far more relevant to the individual user.

A link on the home page called My Site (the portal recognizes the user based on their Windows login - of course, MS uses single sign-in) links to John's personal website that his both a 'public' view (what those in the company see) and a 'personal' view (links and information that only he sees. The presentation and the type of information presented is customized by the individual user including news, stock ticker, presentations, etc.

microsoftweb also features a single search engine -- used for both finding people and their contact information (directory information) and general intranet pages and documents (enterprise search). When doing a search the results are divided into two columns: the first column highlights search results that are relevant intranet pages and documents; the second column produces results that are all MS employees and links to their respective sites and information that are relevant to the search query (a thumbnail photo of each person is also presented).

Most impressive about microsoftweb and the Sharepoint offering is the collaboration tools inherent to the product. Among other things Sharepoint offers a template for team meetings that store relevant documents, list team members, account for member attendance, trigger reminder emails for meetings, etc.

There are currently 31 million Sharepoint users the world-over. Moreover, Microsoft isn't resting on their laurels: Gates & company are investing the bulk of a $700 million project and a dedicated team of some 300 people to beefing-up Sharepoint and fully integrating a new and improved content management system (Content Management Server as it is known today).

Lookout Plumtree and SAP!

Microsoft's Intranet Portal Innovates

What is intuitive to one person is not necessarily intuitive to another. Better put, where I might look for information amongst navigation menu headings on a site is not necessarily where another would look.

For example, there’s a lot of companies that use catchy phrases to describe their human resources intranet or section such as:

• My Work
• @Work
• You and (insert company name)

Quite frankly, I think these labels are crap. It’s akin to shaker sweaters, stirrup pants, Atkins diets and other passing fads and pop influences. My preference? Just call it “Human Resources” or “HR”. But that’s just my opinion...

Are those other labels wrong? Not necessarily. “@Work” may resonate as more intuitive at one company that has a completely different culture and type of employee then another organization. In other words, I would prefer to see “HR” but another employee may prefer “@Work.” Based upon my exposure and work with dozens of corporate intranet clients the number one employee complaint of the intranet remains the same: “I can’t find anything!”

Australian-based Iain Barker, a user experience specialist with Step Two Designs, says that users follow preferred paths guided by intuitive information scents. “Most research into the way users navigate a site reveals that people follow one path and then, when that doesn't provide the information they require, they retrace their steps using the back button, until they find another suitable path to follow,” says Barker. “Users can find this process frustrating and after following a couple of unsuccessful attempts, give up on a site.”

Information scent

Information scent describes how users choose categories or options when they seek information on a site.

Information scent therefore is the intuitive linkage and relation of related content. Strong information scents offers content with context – meaning and definition (literally or by association). Weak information scents confuse and lose users with little or no context.

“When presented with a list of options users will choose the option that gives them the clearest indication (or strongest scent) that it will step them closer to the information they require,” says Barker. “Navigation headings offer surprisingly weak information scent. Navigation headings are typically limited to one or two words, which often isn't enough to clearly distinguish one heading from another and give a clear indication of the content offered in that section of the site.”

While many people will opt to navigate the sites architecture and various categories, others will use search or the site map. A strong site map is recommended. Some sites however will use the site map approach to the home page. A good consumer site example is Walmart’s corporate site which groups like information by links right on in the main content window:

Robertson offers three tips to making a stronger information scent:

• Identify the pages where users require more information to aid their decision.
• Typically this is the homepage and section pages.
• Devote part of the content area on each of these pages to giving more context to the navigation options the user has.

A lot has been made in the past couple of years about intranet best practices and what are some of the norms, universal standards and typical costs.

Of course, there is no easy answer. Every company is different and there are huge degrees in difference between varying industries, corporate cultures, differing technology, etc.

When recently asked to speak about the subject at a 2-part conference in New York and Chicago I developed the "5 Winning Ingredients for a Successful Intranet." Again its worth stating that it depends on the company -- what already is working at one company may not necessarily be working well at another and therefore an independent assessment is necessary to determine the "5 most important ingredients" or focus for an intranet or portal.

However, there are some universal truths that I've learned from working with and observing the work of many dozens of corporate intranets and portals.

Top 5 favorite ingredients:

5 - Simplify

Number one user complaint: “I can’t find anything!” So focus on the basics:

Content Information architecture
Effective search
Self-service tools

Avoid:

Animation
Too many colors
Flash
Non-HTML (or ASP, JSP)

4- Standardize

Standardize development (templates, footers, style guide)
Editorial policy (content formats, roles and responsibilities)
Taxonomy (categorizing and storing content)
Email (acceptable use, broadcast email limitations)
Default home page setting
Browser auto launch

3- Promote

Organization-wide understanding, acceptance, and use of the intranet is critical to success. Think:

Pre-promotion (e-mail alerts, survey, news stories, word of mouth)
Education (new hire orientation, online demo, webinar)
Marketing (print, PDF, e-newsletter, press conference, webcast, premiums, etc.)

2- Content

Content is still king. Firstly you need an editorial policy. But your content should be...

Timely and relevant: know what your employees want and get it published
Answer “what’s in it for me?”: Don’t just re-publish a press release – write for the employee
Succinct: text should be limited to 50 per cent of the words you would write in a print publication.
Promote scanning: by breaking up text using short paragraphs, sub-headings, bullets and call-outs – avoid long, continuous blocks of text

1- Plan

Intranet performance and success (and that of the site) is determined before construction with the identification of business requirements. Subsequent, mandatory planning constructs the blueprint for ongoing management. Failure to develop an integrated plan can ensure failure.

Nothwithstanding needs and requirements, Gartner estimates that one third of projects exceed budgets and schedules by almost 100% in small to mid-size companies. This is largely because of planning failures and an inability to properly document requirements.

Intranet Best Practices