10 Best Intranets of 2005 (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Love him or hate him, he's hard to avoid. I am referring to the ubiquitous usability expert Jakob Nielsen.

In his most recent Alertbox column, he analyzes the 10 Best Intranets of 2005.

This is of particular interest to me since we are redesigning our Intranet where I work and it is easy to get lost, "dazed and confused".

Among the elements of success that Nielsen has identified are:

• the of use of video to strengthen the corporate culture
• tools to connect to workers and employees beyond the office
• internationalization along with localized portals
• the increasing use of usability testing methods

What is particulary striking is that Nielsen found that no single technological solution dominates: "most winners didn't even build their intranet from a single, integrated platform. Typically, designers cobbled together widely diverse software using little more than spit, bailing wire, and willpower."