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January doesn't just mean the start of a new year for me - it also means an opportunity to review the Nielsen Norman Group's Intranet Design Annual. The 10 Best Intranets of 2017 were officially announced on January 7, 2017. Even though it's a little weird to call these the best intranets of 2017 - especially because the submissions were completed in June of 2016 - the report has a lot of interesting and helpful information and design trends that intranet design teams should consider. A word of caution as you review the full report, just because a feature was used in an "award winning" intranet doesn't mean it needs to show up on your intranet! Megamenus continue to be a popular method for intranet navigation - and about half of the award winners use megamenus for global navigation. But that doesn't mean your intranet must have a megamenu! You do, on the other hand, need to make sure that your users can find what they need easily. But, that doesn't mean you must choose a megamenu as your navigational approach. On the other hand, if you don't have a plan for ongoing governance, you can pretty much be assured that your intranet will fail. So, read the report with an "outcome" lens.
Here are some of the key insights I took from the report and how they align with my experience as an intranet designer and information architect:
Creating an award-winning intranet takes time. The average time spent creating intranets recognized by Nielsen Norman Group has decreased from an average of 36 months in 2001 to 17.3 months for the current year's winners. The report notes that the average time was very hard to calculate for some of the winners, whose design was part of a much longer term iterative planning and development process. While you might be able to calculate a specific time for an intranet migration or upgrade to a new technology platform or a new design, a good intranet is never done - because the if content becomes stale and there is no ongoing care and feeding and governance, the entire intranet investment is wasted. The key lesson to learn from the winning organizations: don't rush the process and plan...