Intranet usability
Webcredible can work with you to help improve the usability of your intranet. Employing a variety of usability and user-centered design techniques we'll work closely with you to improve the effectiveness of your intranet. Ultimately, this will improve employee efficiency and satisfaction.
Webcredible rapidly understood our complex service constraints, applying their expertise to produce powerful yet practical usability improvement recommendations.
Anthony Bowyer-Lowe, Yamaha (see more testimonials)
Intranet usability process
A typical intranet usability process would include some or all of the following:
Stakeholder interviews
We would initially look to run interviews with key internal web stakeholders for the intranet. The aim of these interviews is to:
- Understand your business objectives for the intranet
- Learn about the key performance indicators for the intranet
- Find out what your definition of return on investment would be
- Learn about you as an organisation and of course the intranet itself
We would typically meet with about 10 individuals in total, to include intranet manager(s), department managers responsible for different parts of the intranet and web developers (for us to understand technical constraints).
Questionnaires about the intranet
Based on the output of the stakeholder interviews, we would put together a questionnaire to be circulated to all employees that use the intranet. We would initially roll out a pilot questionnaire to a small handful of employees and make tweaks based on their responses. We'd then roll out the questionnaire to the whole organisation.
Once the questionnaires have been completed, Webcredible will collate and analyse the data.
Field research & usability testing
Webcredible will next spend time with a number of your employees (individually) watching them as they do their job, in particular when using the intranet. We would additionally ask employees to complete a number of predefined tasks on the intranet, in a usability testing format. For more on our usability testing methodologies please read our usability testing page.
Following on from the intranet usability testing, we'll write up and present a report highlighting the main findings from the interviews, questionnaires and intranet usability testing. We'll also highlight our recommendations for changes to be made to the intranet to optimise its usability.
Card sorting
The output from each of the previous intranet usability phases will feed directly into the card sorting activity. Any proposed new content from these phases will be incorporated into the card sort.
Card sorting involves writing down the name of each piece of content for the new/revised intranet on to its own card and then asking 15 employees (individually) to place cards into logical groups. Once they've done this, employees assign a label to each group. Webcredible will collate and analyse these groups and labels created and devise an appropriate site map for the intranet.
The new intranet site map will of course be structured so employees can find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently. Please read our card sorting page for more on our card sorting and site map creation methodologies.
Wireframe design & testing
Why we're different
Webcredible does things slightly differently to (and much better than) our competitors:
- We know more than just usability and accessibility
- We're experts in what we do
- We're passionate about our work
- We don't have 'project managers'
- You'll enjoy working with us
- We believe in knowledge sharing so you'll learn a lot from us
Find out in more detail about why we're different.
Webcredible will finally construct wireframes for the key pages on the intranet. The wireframes are specifically designed to make it easy and intuitive for employees to find the information they're looking for on the new intranet.
Wireframes are 'sketches' of intranet page designs that contain all the information, content and navigation of a real page, without any graphic design. The information on the wireframes is positioned in a way that allows employees to find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently. Wireframes work in much the same way that architectural blue prints define a building's structure.
Webcredible will convert the wireframes into a working prototype and carry out usability testing on the prototype. We would usually test with 8 employees, asking them to complete typical tasks on the intranet prototype that they would carry out on the real intranet.
Deliverables for intranet usability
The final deliverables are a site map and set of wireframe designs for the new intranet. We will of course report back to you throughout the intranet usability process with written and oral summaries of our findings.
What next?
Please contact us by phone on 0870 242 6095 or by e-mail at usability at webcredible.co.uk. We'll discuss your website evaluation needs and requirements with no pushy sales pitch and no obligation to you.
Our other usability & user-centered design services
- User research & persona creation
- Usability testing
- Card sorting & site map creation
- Wireframe design & testing
Read our article, Intranet usability guidelines and learn about intranet usability right now!