Intranet Review Toolkit Published, Supported by an IA Progress Grant

December 01, 2005 01:40 PM
This intranet review toolkit provides intranet managers and designers with an easy-to-use method to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their intranet. It contains a substantial set of heuristics, allowing a detailed intranet review to be conducted that focuses on a wide range of functionality, design and strategy.

While there are a number of published heuristics (guidelines or criteria) for reviewing public websites, up to now there has been no equivalent set for corporate intranets. Supported by an IA Institute Progress Grant, Step Two Designs has now developed and published the most comprehensive set of publicly-released intranet heuristics.

Download the Intranet Review Toolkit (200K Microsoft Word file)

The heuristics are based on identified best practices in intranet and website design, providing a sound basis for the review. Additional references are included as an appendix to the document.

The Intranet Review Toolkit covers eight aspects:

  • intranet home page
  • site structure and navigation
  • search
  • page layout and visual design
  • intranet content
  • news
  • staff directory
  • intranet strategy and management

The Toolkit has been published as a Word document, designed to be filled in by the intranet reviewer. Space is provided for comments against each of the heuristics, and a total score is calculated for each of the sections.

The Intranet Review Toolkit can be used in many ways:

  • identifying opportunities for incremental improvement
  • targeting redesign efforts
  • building a business case
  • benchmarking against other intranets
  • ensuring balance in intranet efforts
  • validating a new design

The Intranet Review Toolkit has been published under a Creative Commons license, allowing it to be freely downloaded and used (as long as certain conditions are met, as outlined in the document).

Download the Intranet Review Toolkit (200K Microsoft Word file)