we are #1-10!
Every year, the Nielsen/Norman Group compiles a list of ten "best" intranets, and publishes a report that it sells to companies (like ours) eager to take a peek at the competition. Every year, we read it and walk away with mixed feelings: some features are well designed and executed, while others are years behind what we have. Oh, and of course every year there's a submission that consist of a lightly-customized SharePoint portal... and that's it. "Bah!", we say, "We’ve got SharePoint, plus CMS, plus a stand-alone portal, plus a crapload of applications, plus thousands of static collections..."
Surely, our users are just as proud of the hornet's nest of complexity that we call our intranet.
In any case, last year we decided to throw our hat in the ring. A small brain trust from a couple of departments got together to work on the submission. I ended up writing and rewriting sections on our design methodology and usability testing, as well as the "lessons learned".
We sent in the submission, complete with dozens of screenshots, and waited patiently for the result. When it came a few weeks later, we were pleasantly surprised – we got selected! Unfortunately, we were not allowed to reveal that fact until the final report was published.
But that wasn't all there was to it. We thought that we were done with the writing part. Wrong. Being selected into the top ten meant more writing – much more! When we sent in the second wave of documents, the NNG people responded with a draft of the writeup... and let’s just say it needed a lot of work. I can sort of understand the factual flaws and the inconsistent voice, but the amount of grammar errors and typos reminded me of the finest Lee, Kong & Co. work. More revisions, more emails...
Finally, yesterday we got the good word that the report was officially released. You can visit NNG to check out the summary, but getting your hands on it would cost a cool $224. At least we've got our copy for free... regardless, it's nice to be recognized in the same crowd as GE and Wal-Mart.
Surely, our users are just as proud of the hornet's nest of complexity that we call our intranet.
In any case, last year we decided to throw our hat in the ring. A small brain trust from a couple of departments got together to work on the submission. I ended up writing and rewriting sections on our design methodology and usability testing, as well as the "lessons learned".
We sent in the submission, complete with dozens of screenshots, and waited patiently for the result. When it came a few weeks later, we were pleasantly surprised – we got selected! Unfortunately, we were not allowed to reveal that fact until the final report was published.
But that wasn't all there was to it. We thought that we were done with the writing part. Wrong. Being selected into the top ten meant more writing – much more! When we sent in the second wave of documents, the NNG people responded with a draft of the writeup... and let’s just say it needed a lot of work. I can sort of understand the factual flaws and the inconsistent voice, but the amount of grammar errors and typos reminded me of the finest Lee, Kong & Co. work. More revisions, more emails...
Finally, yesterday we got the good word that the report was officially released. You can visit NNG to check out the summary, but getting your hands on it would cost a cool $224. At least we've got our copy for free... regardless, it's nice to be recognized in the same crowd as GE and Wal-Mart.
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