Organizations are increasingly calling in external expertise when developing a new intranet. And user research has become – rightly so! – an indispensable part of the design process. This year, the Intranet Design Annual of the Nielsen Norman Group was published again, with an overview of the 10 best intranets of 2017 and the most important best practices this year. And, also very instructive, what actually makes an intranet not a winner?
The voluminous but easy-to-read report was written (again) this year by Kara Pernice, Amy Schade, and Patty Caya.
This year's winners
The 10 organizations with the best intranets of 2017 are (in alphabetical order):
Bank of America (US): a financial institution that offers banking, investment, wealth management and financial products and services
Encana Corporation (Canada): an energy producer
Goodwill Industries International, Inc. (US): a social enterprise that funds education and training to increase the opportunities for minorities in the labor market
IBM Corporation (US): a technology, consulting and research organization
JetBlue (US): an airline
Kerry Group plc (Ireland): develops flavour and nutritional technologies for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries
Latvijas Dzelzceļš (Latvia): a holding company with six subsidiaries providing railway infrastructure, transport, construction, repair and security
Santander Group (Spain): a financial institution
Tourism New Zealand (New Zealand): the greek phone number organisation responsible for marketing New Zealand as a tourist destination
The winning organisations have an average of 100,700 employees, ranging from 160 employees at Tourism New Zealand to almost 200,000 at both Bank of America and Santander Group, and over 400,000 at IBM.
Compared to previous years, the average time spent developing a new intranet is only 1.4 years. This can be explained mainly by the use of more efficient strategies (such as agile) and by the fact that there is more continuous monitoring and improvement than before. A trend that started around 2012.
Why are these the best intranets of 2016?
I provide the (translated) explanation from the report on the intranet:
Bank of America
“Bank of America created HR Connect to simplify and enhance the online HR experience for employees and help them take advantage of all the benefits available at the bank. A strong site structure, personalized information, and clearly written content create a globally unified HR experience.