Part of the Intranet Usability Guidelines Series

A distributed content model, in which each department has content contributors, keeps information fresh and varied. The best intranets instruct people about how to post, edit, and maintain content.

The report also covers considerations in building an intranet that supports users in multiple locations—whether just down the halfway or around the world—as well as provides information in multiple languages.

This 141-page report contains 80 design recommendations based on our usability research. Discussions and 75 screenshot illustrations supplement the findings.

Benefits

• Positive and negative aspects of different content management models
• Help determining whether you should implement one centralized, or multiple intranets for each location
• Checklist of 80 recommendations for managing content and international intranets

Topics

• Approaches to content management
• Content contribution: Challenges and solutions
• Types of intranet content
• Keeping content updated, unique, and organized
• Creating and posting content
• Forms for adding content
• Assigning content responsibility
• Helping contributors
• Managing content contributors
• Reviewing and publishing
• Managing content for diverse languages and cultures
• Supporting local needs and international users
• Design considerations for diverse languages and cultures
• Helpful international features
• Sample intranet guidelines

Download report excerpt (2MB PDF)

Research Method

The information in these reports is based on three separate rounds of user research with company employees as participants. We used two different research methods:

• One-on-one usability testing
• Field studies, during which we observed employees as they went about their normal work

In total, 176 people tested 42 intranets. The studies took place in the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, United Arab Emirates, and China (Hong Kong).