10 Best Intranets of 2019

by Kara Pernice and Patty Caya on January 6, 2019

Topics:
• Intranets

Summary: Winners are from large and medium-sized organizations from around the
world; they had short development time and small teams who relied on both internal
resources and external help.

This year’s Nielsen Norman Group Intranet Design Annual contest

and report showcases winners and offers an abundance of sound advice and scores of
creative design examples that advance their users’ digital workplace. Following are
the organizations with the 10 best-designed intranets for 2019:
• 3M (US), a global science company
• Anthem, Inc., (US), the largest for-profit managed health care company in
the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association
• BHP Billiton Limited (Australia), a leading global resources company
• Duke Energy (US), one of the largest electric power holding companies in the
US, supplying and delivering electricity to approximately 7.4 million US
customers
• European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (UK), an
international, multilateral development bank that provides financial
instruments and advisory services that strengthen economies on three
continents
• Flight Centre Travel Group (Australia), the world’s largest independent
travel company, specializing in vacations, tours, and corporate travel
• The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) (US), an American
multinational technology company
• Lamprell Energy Limited (United Arab Emirates), a leading provider of
fabrication, engineering, and contracting services to the offshore and onshore
oil, gas, and renewable energy industries
• Messer Construction Co. (US), an employee-owned commercial construction
company
• Norwegian Government Security and Service Organization (Norway), a
shared services organization within the central government of Norway

The United States Continues to Supply the Most

Winners
Of the 10 winning teams, 5 hail from the US (which is likely because Nielsen Norman
Group is based in the US). For the first time in years, Canada has no winners this year.
Of the remaining 5 winners, Australia has 2, and Dubai, Norway, and the UK each have
one.

Utilities and Government Have the Strongest

Showing This Year
We broaden the definition of “utilities” to include mining and other natural resources;
given that, utilities remain the most winning industry, with 31 winners (17%) since
the start of this contest. This year, three utilities companies are among the winners.
Two government agencies—the Norwegian Government Security and Service
Organization and EBRD—are among this year’s winners. (EBRD also qualifies as a
financial institution.)
Technology and finance continue to be strongly represented industries, and each has
one winner this year. While certainly good, the representation of tech and finance is
less than we saw in the first decade of this award and indicates that a broader range of
industries are now taking intranet design and UX seriously.

Rapid Intranet Development

From 2001 to the present, the overall average development time is 33.1 months (2.8
years). But the more interesting story is the consistent and significant drop in this
average starting in 2014. From 2001 to 2013, the average was 23.5 months (2.0
years), while the average from 2014 forward was just 15.9 months (1.3 years). Last
year, the average winning intranets’ development time dropped even further, to 14
months (1.2 years), and it held at 14 months again this year.
The approach that teams take to an intranet “redesign” has also changed. Today’s
redesign may include restructuring the IA, auditing content, revamping search, and
changing the look and feel. However, Agile development has removed the sense
of finality of a released design. Teams still plan major components, but they deliver
them in waves, often after the big redesign goes live. Thus, the great intranets are
always improving. In consequence, the redesign time measured doesn’t include all of
the design work on the intranet. It simply can’t, because redesign is an ongoing
project.
Further, good intranet-creation tools can expedite development. For example, two of
this year’s winners used intranet solutions that let them go live in just seven and nine
months, respectively.
Teams created this year’s winning sites in an average of 14 months (1.2 years). This
development time continues the trend that started in 2014, when creating the winning
intranets began taking less than 1.5 years on average. In contrast, from 2001 to 2013,
winning intranet teams took an average of 23.5 months (2.0 years) to complete their
redesigns.

Large and Mid-Size Organizations Winning

The median company size of this year’s winners was 33,000 employees. On average,
winning organizations had 72,330 employees, ranging from 1,200 employees at
Messer Construction Co. to 380,000 at IBM.

The winning 2019 intranets come from organizations with an average of 72,330 employees.
This year’s median was 33,000 employees. (The high average in 2010 was due to winning
organization Walmart’s size, with an intranet supporting 1.4 million store associates.
Excluding Walmart, the average for that year was 39,100.)

Larger Core Teams

This year’s average team size for the winning intranets was 20 members — the
second largest we have seen. Team sizes ranged from as few as two members at Flight
Centre Travel Group to as many as 50 at IBM. Four teams — Anthem, Inc., BHP Billiton
Limited, Duke Energy, and IBM— were larger than the average size of last year’s
winners (14 team members).
These numbers reflect the core intranet teams, as opposed to extended teams, which
might include content authors or short-term project members. Core teams comprised
internal and external staff and full- and part-time employees.

In 2019, the average team size was 20 members; this is the largest average we have seen
since 2013, when the average was 27 members.
It’s encouraging to see an increase in the average core-team size for the winning
intranets. For too long, intranet teams have been making do with limited human
resources. Creating and maintaining an intranet — no matter how much you automate
and build good workflows — is still a manual job in many ways. Including individuals
from across the organization always requires deep research, handholding, and
political maneuvering.
Further, our team numbers here reflect the number of employees working on
the intranet redesign; often, even fewer employees remain dedicated to intranet
maintenance, governance, and iterative development after the major redesign effort is
complete. Given the intranet’s importance — both for communicating internally and
completing daily work — intranet teams should be even more generously staffed.

Intranet Team Size Relative to Number of

Employees
The median company size of this year’s winners was 33,000 employees. On average,
winning organizations have 72,330 employees, ranging from 1,200 employees at
Messer Construction Co. to 380,000 at IBM.
For the winning designs, we also consider team size relative to organization size.
Intranet teams are special in that a small number of people can have a huge impact on
many people at the organization. For example, the 3M team had 12 people supporting
121,000 users.
As a percentage, this year’s teams comprised 0.037% of company size. That is, for
every 10,000 employees, 3.7 worked on the intranet team.

This year’s winning intranet teams comprised 0.037% of the entire organization.
To further explore the relationship between organization and team sizes, we
compared team size to company size over the past 10 Intranet Design Annuals. We
found that our winning intranets have a similar intranet support ratio, or percentage
of employees who work on the intranet team.
The rather complex formula below summarizes the relationship between team size
and organization size for winning Intranet Design Annual teams. The intranet support
ratio formula is:
Intranet support ratio = 6.689 * number of employees-0.926
That is, you take the number of employees the intranet supports and raise it to the
power of -0.926. You then multiply the resulting number by 6.689 to get the expected
intranet support ratio. This ratio, multiplied by the number of employees, results in a
team size. (The equation explains 89% of the variability in intranet support ratios.)
As complex at this equation is, in practice, it breaks down simply to team sizes of 8–10
people as follows:
 Size of winning
Number of employees at
intranet team
winning organizations

100 7.5

1,000 8.0

10,000 8.5

100,000 9.0

500,000 9.4

The intranet support ratio equation explains 89% of the variability in intranet support
ratios. This effect is visible in the chart, which plots the numbers on a double logarithmic
scale.
These numbers are likely so small because the teams enlisted agency support.
Regardless, we do not recommend having only 7–10 people on intranet teams. In fact,
teams should have many more people; this year’s winners, for example, had 20 team
members on average. Teams may need many more (or, in rare cases, fewer) people,
depending on the circumstances. These numbers are simply a suggested minimum
team size.

Bringing in Outside Help

Eight of this year’s winning organizations looked to outside agencies and consultants
to help with their intranet redesign, bringing in an average of two agencies each.
Key areas that teams sought help for included:
· Content creation and editor training
· Development
· Discovery
· Ideation
· Information architecture
· Persona creation
· Journey map creation
· Project management
· Prototyping
· User research
· Visual design
· Wireframes
Over the years, many winning intranet teams have engaged external resources to help
in their redesign projects, both to fill internal team gaps and gain outside experience
and perspective.
Reliance on outside resources is a double-edged sword, however. Many winning
organizations have quick development times and iterative practices, which raises a
crucial question: When these short-term external resources leave, who is left to iterate,
maintain, and continually improve the new site?
This year, 8 of 10 winning organizations used outside resources in their intranet-redesign
project.