Microsoft Web is the main intranet portal within Microsoft, with over 60,000 unique users per month, 75% of whom use the site once or more per day. The site has also grown to host an assortment of content for various business groups, including news, information about the company and about various corporate services.

Challenge: A Portal for the Whole Intranet, “Out of the Box”

The primary overall goals of the project were to increase employee productivity and user satisfaction, and to serve as the premier internal showcase implementation of the latest version of SharePoint—using the software “out of the box” as much as possible. The split nature of the site as portal and content destination was evident in its structure and navigation, with two similar sets of subject categories—one leading to content hosted on MSWeb and one leading to content on sites around the intranet (including MSWeb). This, along with a convoluted information architecture that had evolved organically over time, led to much confusion amongst users.

Approach: Merge, Sort, Test, Repeat…

Rather than try to clarify the portal/content distinction, I merged the two into one. Users didn’t know or care where content was hosted as long as they could find it. Multiple rounds of user testing confirmed this and helped us come up with categories and navigation elements. I created 15 different page templates as well as numerous examples using real content, a high-level sitemap, and reorganized the site inventory of the 900-page site to fit the new model and testing results.

Outcome: Productivity, Satisfaction and an Award

The results were a user-centric site with task-based navigation that let employees spend less time looking for information and more time doing things with it, which led to an 18% increase in employee satisfaction with the site. The Nielsen Norman Group chose the site, based on usability, as one of the Year’s 10 Best Intranets for 2007.