denotes premium content | May 26 2012 
Feature
posted 31 Aug 2004 in Volume 1 Issue 3
From rags to riches
In May 2003, the intranet at Wellington Underwriting was little more than a glorified company phone directory that lacked cohesive design, relevant content or any editorial control. Redesigning the site without a content-management system, using older technology and operating with no budget has proved challenging, but as intranet manager Lucy Cass explains, the company’s intranet project, Wellnet, is on its way to becoming a success.
Although Wellington Underwriting is one of the largest managing agents within the Lloyd’s of London insurance arena, we are small in comparison to many similar companies. So in a crowded and rapidly changing market, a clear information and intranet strategy is vital to our success. As we grow we expect to use our new intranet, Wellnet, as a dynamic tool that will allow employees to access company information quickly and easily.
But this vision wasn’t always so clear. As Wellington shifted its focus to a more global platform, the corporate website evolved, but the intranet didn’t. After the information department was formed in 1999, staff realised the intranet could function as a communication tool and give a competitive advantage through providing information quickly. The decision to redesign the intranet soon followed.
Our intranet history
Wellington launched its intranet in 1998, with just one editor. Like the corporate internet, the intranet was IT-driven and perceived by upper management as something ‘we should have because others do’ rather than a business-critical requirement.
That first intranet consisted primarily of a static list of names and phone numbers, plus a subsection giving tips on solving basic IT problems. One editor imported site content into Microsoft’s FrontPage 97, without any hard programming. As part of this system, there was an emphasis on using built-in FrontPage features, such as hover buttons and scroll bars. Although handy, they could make for sluggish page loading on slower computers. Styles were also inconsistent and any redesign was a major task. The main advantage of the intranet at this time was the phone directory – the only place employees could obtain current contact information.
After the information department formed, its staff began to utilise the intranet. This shifted much of the responsibility for page creation and maintenance away from the IT department, although management still encouraged them and other departments to contribute to the site.
Before the redesign the intranet had become too large and unmanageable. Knowing that resources and budget were limited, it was clear we had a major task on our hands. The information department began by looking at the intranet in detail and compiled a list of major faults. We immediately saw the main areas of concern that had led to the intranet becoming underused and undervalued.
Out-of-date and confusing content
Staff would only visit a handful of pages that were updated regularly and ignore the majority of information available.
Clumsy navigation
Users struggled to find pages and were either taking too much time looking or had given up using the site altogether.
Lack of organisational structure
The intranet was not intuitive and users had no clear idea of where they were within the site once they moved into a deeper level of navigation.
No design guidelines or editorial control
The site looked outdated and many of the business areas were inconsistent in design. Different font styles, sizes, colours and clip art images were all too common. Editors were also too used to having control over the appearance of their own areas, so with no clear design guidelines a unified look was absent. Editors also became over familiar with their areas and were unable to discern when content needed updating.
No support from senior management
Lack of encouragement from senior management and absence of an intranet manager were overriding problems.Without either, it meant there was no one to champion the cause or encourage any major redesign.
After establishing the intranet’s major faults we had three clear objectives:
- To provide information to employees in a timely and accurate fashion;
- To improve communication between departments;
- To create a knowledge-sharing environment.
Because Wellington is a small company with most employees working in one primary office, there wasn’t a need for an expensive redevelopment process at this stage. Although there is a need for a content-management strategy, there is no great need for a content-management system (CMS).
After establishing our objectives, the redesign process was broken down into three phases.
- Phase one: improved navigation and design;
- Phase two: content audit;
- Phase three: CMS implementation.
With a small team, this was the only way to ensure all elements would be given proper consideration and planning. From May 2003, we gave ourselves thirty months to complete the project. We are currently nearing the end of phase two.
Phase one
We wanted to ensure that with minimal cost and effort we could improve usability of the site. Our plan was to carry out extensive research and in-house user testing to ensure navigation was consistent with user’s expectations before trials and re-testing of the intranet began.
To meet our improved navigation and design objective, we decided to look at three key areas in the first phase: faster information retrieval, consistent design style and the content’s relevance.
It was clear we had to enhance site navigation to improve efficiency and avoid employees missing out on critical company information because it wasn’t easy to find. Ensuring the intranet had a consistent design style throughout would help users locate information faster. On its own, the creation of a simple navigation menu would ensure the intranet looked different. But it was also important for the menu to mirror sections that already had consistently high usage statistics1, such as compliance guidelines, training and human-resources pages.
It was clear we could not make all these changes without bringing content up to date. Given the time scale, we decided certain key areas would be worked on to ensure that some, if not all, content was current and dynamic at the time of the launch. A content audit was then scheduled for the second phase of the process.
Editorial control and design
Responsibility for the intranet has always been dispersed throughout the main business areas, with the information department providing the driving force behind the site.
My position of intranet manager was created last year after senior management recognised that for the intranet to grow, development needed to be managed from a central source.
Currently, 14 volunteer editors are responsible for the content relevant to their business area.
Without any prior knowledge of web design or content management, each is willing to give up part of their working day to the development of the site.
In turn, they are supported by department heads that recognise editorial commitment is vital to the success of the intranet. Despite this support, one of the challenges of the redesign has been to coach the editors to bring all their ideas together under one objective.
Previously, all editors were inconspicuous and relatively unknown to the rest of the company. But to stress the importance of their roles, each now has ownership of their own page with their name and contact details included at the bottom. Initially, we had to reinforce to each editor the importance of their role.
We told them that to remain involved in the development they would need to be dedicated to maintaining and promoting their relevant areas. Monthly development meetings were also established, which were crucial in the early stages of the design process. All editors were kept up to date with developments and critical design decisions were passed by the group before further implementation. The aim was to create a community of editors that could share ideas and knowledge, ultimately striving to make the intranet the best it could be.
To bring all content under a uniform design and format, we first identified a specific font style, layout and guideline for creating all new pages. By creating a style sheet that dictated the basic elements of design, we knew the beginnings of all new pages would follow a predefined style. To help guide editors further in good design principles, an online design handbook was written. This was distributed to editors while the intranet manager championed its importance in subsequent development group meetings. By creating guidelines, we were not trying to prevent creativity – we merely wanted to maintain consistency for certain page elements.
Key changes to date
Before redesign, the intranet’s navigation had been unmanaged for several years.
By last July, it had grown to 15 categories contained in an inconsistently expandable menu with no clear structure that often left users stranded (see figure 1).
If users wanted to visit a subsequent section from within one of the main content areas, they would have to return to the homepage and start again because all other links had disappeared. The original menu was clearly divided according to the organisational structure and many important sections were hidden four or five levels down. It was not an intuitive system and our first task was to minimise the number of menu categories. This old menu had been created as a separate database by a series of in-house IT development staff, but it was difficult to manage and any design changes were a major task. The new menu was created using JavaScript, enabling the intranet team to have editorial and design functionality.
The new menu structure consists of eight drop down menus (see figure 2) that enable users to switch from section to section without having to return to the main menu or use the back button on the browser. We used a method of card sorting to take previous menu categories and condense them into manageable sections using generic terms, such as information and finance to describe the content, rather than following the existing organisation charts. We also included a search engine field at the top of the menu bar and a permanent link to the telephone directory, allowing users quick access to the most frequently used tools.
The Wellnet homepage is now dynamic with the main content changing on a daily, if not hourly basis. The share price feed is borrowed from our website design company, updating itself every 15 minutes. Key news headlines related to the insurance industry are manually added every morning. The centre section provides a rolling table of information containing useful employee information, including the latest market reports, newsletters, intranet updates, press releases and staff movements.
Launch day
Rather than simply launching the new intranet with little fanfare, we decided to promote it to the whole company at our monthly employee social event, in addition to making sure it was live on everyone’s desktops the following morning. Although this strategy ensured maximum attendance, the night before the launch we held a competition asking people to submit possible names via the intranet itself. The prize, a bottle of champagne, was a good incentive to participate and a popular way of letting employees know change was imminent.
During the evening itself we held games and quizzes and had the intranet visible on a big screen so people could see and become familiar with the new layout. Terminals were also made available for employees to experiment with the new site.
The days leading up to the launch were busy and we had a massive job migrating content and implementing the new menu and style sheet. It all had to be done manually, as FrontPage had remained our content editing and management tool throughout. It was madness to think we could get all the pages edited in time, and by launch day we had to settle for completing all the main areas and leaving less frequently visited pages to be completed later.
Continuing development
Following the launch of Wellnet we are still working on the design and content of the site. Intranets are always in a constant redesign cycle. It is important that we never think the site is the best it can be because technology is constantly evolving and users will always expect more. Before you know it, the company will have restructured itself, business processes will have changed, or the organisation will be writing more business. While working through one cycle we must be thinking about and planning the next one. When one launch is over, the process begins all over again.
Several weeks after the launch, we circulated a post-redesign questionnaire, which provided valuable feedback and gave us new targets to work towards. The majority of users were positive, but we had a few who could not see the point of change. Our usage statistics have supported the initial feedback we received and previously underused areas are now regularly visited. Monitoring usage statistics are vital to continuing development at the moment because without more financial investment we have no other way of presenting return on investment – something that is incredibly hard to provide for intranets in the first place. Employees at Wellington are more conscious of the intranet now and no longer just use it for the phone directory; they know there is a team dedicated to it and are more aware of its content.
Lessons learnt
We have learnt a number of lessons from the planning and redesign over the past 18 months.
First, support from senior management for any intranet project is crucial. Without their buy-in, it’s very hard to get people to take your work seriously. If your work is being promoted and actively supported by management, you’ll find people more willing to accept changes and see the importance of what you’re doing.
Second, measuring the speed of information retrieval is crucial during the early stages of your redesign. Usability tests are an excellent method for learning how employees think and use your site, and can be completed in-house if budgets are limited. If users cannot find the information they require quickly, they’re wasting valuable company time and are likely to stop using the site. In this case, the intranet will never become a central information source and an organisation will likely continue to use e-mail as its primary information tool.
Finally, remember to keep editors informed at all stages. They should be involved in all design decisions, as you will need them later when you want them to re-write content or create new pages. Provide editors with easy to follow style guidelines, ask for their feedback on your choices and be prepared to be flexible if they think you’ve made a bad decision.
Conclusion
It is impossible to put a cost on the redesign of our intranet because we have never had a specific budget to work from. However, the project has been successful and money has not been an issue. For a small company, it’s not always necessary to buy expensive content-management products. In the last year, creating an intranet manager position and recruiting an intranet assistant has demonstrated the company’s continuing commitment to the site.
Technology does not make a successful intranet or website; it merely makes it look more successful. A true measure of an intranet’s success is measured by the quality of its content and the ease of navigation that lets a user find that information. Although the Wellington intranet may not look like the BBC’s, our employees can find what they’re looking for without wasting valuable company time.
