km - step two · km column september 2013 intranet innovations 2013: key themes from this year’s...

© Copyright 2013, Step Two Designs Pty Ltd • www.steptwo.com.auintranets • usability • information architecture • knowledge management • content management

KMCOLUMN

SEPTEMBER 2013

Intranet Innovations 2013: key themes from this year’s awards

2013 was an excellent year for the IntranetInnovation Awards. Now in its seventh year,the competition, run by Step Two Designs,celebrates the most innovative intranetsfrom all over the globe. This year we re-ceived over 60 entries, with the standard ofsubmissions higher than ever before.

The quality of entries not only shows that in-tranet teams are more professional than ev-er, but also shows how the very bestintranets have evolved into complex digitalchannels combining content, social collabo-ration and workplace solutions. Even non-award-winning entries reflected the greatdexterity and skill of intranet teams aroundthe world.

Out of all the winners, two entries were ex-ceptional, and we decided to award two Plat-inum awards. These went to Barclays Bank(UK) and Hansen Yuncken (Australia).

In addition we awarded:

• Ten gold award winners: Virtuos (China), AMP (Australia), Calgary Board of Education (Canada), FortisBC (Canada), PwC Australia (Australia), Mayo Clinic Dept of Nursing (USA), Henry County Health Center (USA), Coca-Cola Enterprises (USA / UK), Bouygues Telecom (France) and Virgin America (USA).

• Seven commended entries: Gold Coast Hospital Emergency Dept (Australia), Arup (UK), Arup Pty Ltd (Australia), Disney Consumer Products (USA), Shepherd and Wedderburn (UK), Klick Health (Canada) and Queensland University of Technology (Australia).

From the winning entries and across thesubmissions in general we are able to seewhere leading-edge intranets are heading.This article explores some of the key themes.

19 case studies, 200 screen shots!The full annual Intranet Innovations 2013report features detailed case studies of all 19winning and commended entries andaround 200 intranet screen shots of the sitesin question. At $89 it’s exceptional value,helping to both inform and inspire intranetteams. Report sales also support the effort ittakes us to keep on running the awards.

Obtain the report from our online store:store.steptwo.com.au/product/intranet-innovations/

(If you’re new to the Awards, obtain the bun-dle of reports, providing all seven years ofwinners for just $100 extra.)

Social is now business as usual for intranetsSocial is now business as usual for intranetteams, and has become an assumed elementof modern sites. Teams are now strengthen-ing and maturing their social functionality,including greater integration and use of per-sonalisation. Social is now far more likely tobe embedded in solutions and processesthan ever before.

One way in which social tools are maturingin the enterprise is through much deeper in-tegration into the intranet. Finally social col-laboration and content platforms are comingtogether.

This is demonstrated nowhere better than inAMP’s new iteration of its intranet, the Hub,where there is a truly seamless experiencebetween social and content platform. AMP’sintranet makes publishing an article feel asmuch a ‘social’ experience as it is a commu-nication-led process.

In other instances external social media,such as Twitter feeds, regularly featureswithin intranets, keeping employees in-

Steve Bynghall is the project man-ager and report author of thisyear’s Intranet Innovation AwardsReport. He is a freelance intranetand KM consultant and writerbased in the UK. He also works ex-tensively with the Digital Work-place Group. You can follow Steveon Twitter at @bynghall.

China-based gaming company Virtuos intranet uses gamification to successfully drive employee training and online participation. The video-game loving staff get badges and unlock levels in the style of a video game, with a path clearly shown between the individual training taken and career progression within the company.

AMP’s intranet the Hub is innovative in the way it tightly integrates social collaboration into the intranet but also in its design. There is an extensive use of images not only within the content but also in the use of icons. Unusually, the navigation is vertical rather than horizontal.

Intranet Innovations 2013: key themes from this year’s awards • © Copyright 2013, Step Two Designs Pty Ltd • www.steptwo.com.au

formed of organisations’ marketing messagesand their interaction with customers.

Social maturity is also reflected in the abilityto extract greater business value. Virtuos, agaming-related production company, struc-tured its training program around the use ofbadges to celebrate certificates and achieve-ments. By providing a video game-like expe-rience for its video game-loving workforce,training delivered expanded by 500 per cent.

The design gap between intranets and website has closed

Intranets have traditionally lagged behindwebsites in terms of design. This includesboth the quality of design, and the use ofmodern design practices. But this design gapbetween websites and intranets has finallyclosed.

Far more care and attention is now given tothe aesthetics of intranets and the bar con-tinues to be raised for design standards.

This is reflected not only in the strongest en-tries to the awards, but also the general stan-dard. There were few entries which lackedvisual appeal. Moreover the influence of ex-ternal consumer-centric sites such as Pinter-est is clear, with multiple images on displayin preference to text.

A leading example of striking intranet de-sign is AMP’s the Hub. Not only does it usea vertical rather than horizontal navigation,but images are prominent throughout.

Based on user feedback, icons are used inthe navigation and images used extensivelywithin the body of the page to aid what AMPdescribes as ‘visual-based browsing’. Itshows that intranet teams can keep an over-all design modern, fresh and attractive, butstill feeling like an intranet.

Leading intranets are now aligning the web-site and intranet user experience. At PwCAustralia the intranet is focused on clientservice and the related processes. The intra-net deliberately breaks down the barriers be-tween internal and external digital channels,and there is an almost identical user experi-ence on the corporate website and the intra-net. The influence of consumer-facing

websites is also shown at a more granularlevel, for example the use of QR codes onemployees’ profile pages. Overall intranetand website design are not considered in iso-lation.

Intranets are now core business systems

With the pressures on organisations steadilygrowing, the need for increased productivityhas never been greater. Leading intranets arenow going beyond their roots as publishingplatforms, and are positioning themselves ascore business tools, automating key tasksand processes.

By combining a great user experience withthe latest technologies, intranets are show-ing new ways of meeting business needs.They are delivering highly integrated envi-ronments which interface with importantsystems, use workflow, and deliver criticalfunctionality relating to the organisation’smain business operations.

In many of these cases the intranet needs tobe heavily customised to meet the complexneeds of a business. Platinum award winnerHansen Yuncken has crafted a unique on-line environment from which employeescan manage the firm’s construction projects,and many of the associated processes.

Hansen Yuncken’s intranet HYway is an out-standing example of interplay between elec-tronic forms, project methodologies,documents, data from other systems, work-flow and reporting options.

It covers end-to-end processes, from themanagement of opportunities to site inspec-tions, and is now truly part of the wayHansen Yuncken works.

Other forward-thinking organisations areproviding intranet-based tools which simpli-fy and streamline processes for users whichmay have been previously carried out acrossdifferent systems. By presenting data fromdisparate systems and offering detailed re-porting options, intranets are being reinvent-ed as key work systems rather than justcommunications channels.

Far more attention is now given to the aesthetics of intranets

Intranets are now automating key tasks and processes


Hansen Yuncken’s intranet HYway uses a highly complex series of forms, process roadmaps, workflow, data from core systems and reporting to manage the firm’s core processes, making the intranet a truly essential c business tool. The above example is a form used for registering opportunities.

Both Virgin America (above left) and Coca-Cola Enterprises (above right) have produced rich mobile intranet environments. Both have experienced good adoption through employee and corporate-owned devices.


The mobile experience is having an impact

Enterprise mobility has reached a turningpoint where mobile access to the intranet isnormalised, following the same pattern asadoption of social tools.

For years there has been talk about the po-tential of mobile intranets, but until now or-ganisations have been reluctant to actuallyimplement solutions. Even successful de-ployments have all too often been carriedout under the radar, with limited budget.

But at long last, mobile intranets are far morecommonplace. There is a significant in-crease in mobile intranet submissions to theawards, or as important elements within en-tries.

In many intranet implementations mobileaccess is now a core deliverable from dayone, along with the desktop version. Previ-ously intranet mobilisation has been astand-alone and specialist project.

For example Virgin America's striking VXConnect intranet was mobile-enabled prin-cipally through the use of responsive design.Mobile access was critical for the intranet'ssuccess for an airline where two thirds ofemployees do not sit behind desks.

While the number of mobilised intranets isgrowing, the depth of functionality on dis-play and the richness of the use experienceis increasing.

Platinum award winner Barclays Bank de-veloped its MyZone mobile intranet specifi-cally for frontline staff. It's a stunningexample of the power of enterprise mobility.A mix of news, product information, a user-generated video channel, ideation and localcontent is wrapped up into a great designwhich greatly impressed the judges.

This has led to positive outcomes, includingbetter employee product awareness (withcustomer complaints reduced by half), andincreased employee engagement.

Other mobile intranets are showing sophisti-cated functionality. For example Gold awardwinner Coca-Cola Enterprises extends em-ployee self-service to the mobile device aswell as delivering news.

User-centred design remains crucial

While intranet trends come and go, exten-sive user research and user-centred design(UCD) remains vital if an intranet is to haveimpact. This is particularly true for core in-tranet functionality or redesign projects, re-flected in our new intranet rework category.

Highly successful intranet teams demon-strate a meticulous approach to understand-ing users' work-related needs and how theyuse an intranet, and then an equal commit-ment to testing and refining their proposeddesign before launch.

UCD is at its most critical when a user pop-ulation is complex and diverse. This wascertainly demonstrated in the Calgary Boardof Education's personalised learning envi-ronment, Iris, which was to be deployed inschools. The beautiful interface is beingused by age groups from 4 to 18, as well asteachers.

Only with very extensive research, prototyp-ing and user-testing across these extremelychallenging audience groups could goodadoption for the final product be guaranteed.This is certainly our first ever entry whichhas involved usability testing within a kin-dergarten!

UCD techniques were also important for de-signing the Mayo Clinic Dept of Nursing'snew intranet. This was completely focusedon the needs of the nursing population in thehospital. The intranet team knew getting thedesign right was potentially critical for pa-tient care so they observed nurses in thefield, collected documents and took photosof work areas to really understand how nurs-es work. Equal care was applied to derivingan information architecture, with nursessifting through 500 pieces of content.

New intranet platforms have emerged

The technology which enterprise-wide in-tranets can be deployed on continues toevolve. Moving beyond traditional publish-ing and portal platforms, intranets are nowsuccessfully being deployed onto tools suchas WordPress and Saleforce's Chatter. Thisbrings the latest web technology directlyinto the heart of organisations.

Mobile intranet access is now a core deliverable from day one

UCD is at its most critical when users are complex and diverse


The Calgary Board of Education has produced Iris, a personal learning environment with rich collaborative features used both by teachers and school children of all ages. With such a diverse user population extensive user-centred design techniques needed to be applied during the project. The result is a beautifully designed portal.


This year we received entries for intranetsusing technology we have not seen before inthe awards. While SharePoint does domi-nate the intranet landscape, viable alterna-tives continue to emerge.

A surprising development is the emergenceof WordPress as a serious content manage-ment system (CMS) option for enterprise in-tranets. Three of the entries on the shortlist,two of them winning, used possibly theworld's most popular CMS as their base.

Virtuos's intranet uses a myriad of plug-ins,including BuddyPress, to bring social func-tionality to over 1,000 staff, while MayoClinic's complex content-centric intranethas over 150 subsites.

The 2014 awardsWe’ll be running the Intranet InnovationAwards again next year, and we can’t wait tosee what will feature. Will there be somenew twists in mobile? Will there be a delugeof submissions based on SharePoint 2013?Will big data be influencing intranets? Welook forward to reading about your innova-tions in April 2014.

Get the case studies and screen shotsYou can purchase the full Intranet Innova-tions 2012 report online:

store.steptwo.com.au/product/intranet-innovations/

www.steptwo.com.au [email protected]•

intranets usability & IA• • content management information management•

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PwC Australia’s new intranet has a very similar user experience to its external-facing web environment.

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