We just finished presenting the second webinar in a five-part series on Creating a Successful Law Firm Intranet. This time the topic was intranet design, and we included the five areas of intranet design as well as a law firm case study. My part of the presentation focused on requirements, project plans, and staffing. Laurie Southerton talked about architecture and visual design. Meredith Williams gave us an inside look at the design process within her firm, Baker Donelson. Add that all together, and the session was jam-packed with great information!
In fact, one question we couldn’t get to during the presentation was directed at Laurie, and I’ve provided her answer below.
Question: Where can I find more information or references about visual design?
Laurie’s answer: This is the part of designing an intranet that people like best and usually have a very strong opinion about what it should look like. Working with a good visual designer (whether from your in-house team or with a contract designer) can make a difference between a blah site and a great site.
My favorite book to use with management and teams is a short, simple, easy-to-read book by author Steven Krug - Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.” It has a great chapter on “Design 101,” and one on “Desinging the Home Page.”
I also recommend the following links for more information about visual design:
- http://webstyleguide.com - online and available in book format. One of the best references for web design I have found.
- http://www.useit.com/books/visualbooks.html - list of books recommended by Jakob Nielsen, web usability guru.
- http://www.lukew.com/resources/links_visual.html - Another good list of books recommended by Luke Wroblewski, a renowned web interface designer.
Thanks for the tips, Laurie!
More information will be posted soon about registration for the next sessions in our Creating a Successful Law Firm Intranet series: develop, rollout, and maintain/measure. Stay tuned!
-Amy Witt
You are invited to attend the second webinar in a five-part series hosted by Nina Platt Consulting, Inc. and Southerton Consulting, and sponsored by SydneyPLUS & LawPort, titled Creating the Successful Law Firm Intranet: Intranet design is more than just words and colors. The session will be held on Wednesday, June 25 Noon -1:00 PM Central Time. You may also register for the series of webinars 2-5 (Design, Develop, Rollout, Measure/Maintain).
In the second session on design you will learn:
- The five areas of intranet design
- How to use design to plan, prioritize, and budget your project
- What role your users play in designing your intranet
You might ask, What is a successful law firm intranet? An intranet should be a business productivity tool. An intranet’s success is measured by the increased efficiency of the lawyers and staff who use it. Building a successful intranet involves having a good strategy, a realistic plan and involving users in every step of the process. A successful intranet begins with effectively following a five-step process: Research, Design, Develop, Rollout and Measure.
We hope to have you join us for this informative session.
I seem to have Web 2.0 on my mind since attending the MALL Spring Meeting recently that focused on that topic or there may be a proliferation of articles and blog posts dealing with it. In any event, I have been reading, viewing videos, and clicking through slideshows on the subject - there’s lots to learn.
What is Web/Enterprise 2.0, OracleVideo. Video interview with Andrew McAfee. Search for Andrew McAfee on YouTube for additional videos on this topic.
The Many Uses of Enterprise Wikis, CIO.com. I’ve been playing with the PBwiki and Zoho tools for various purposes but have yet to try Google Sites. Our company intranet is a PBwiki application, although we are also looking at the Zoho wiki as it seems to be easier to customize the look of the site with Zoho. I’m not too far along with these tools so you probably should check other sources, including your own test of the system to determine if I am right. A wiki intranet seems to work fine for a company of four consultants here at NPCI.
Why Change is Critical to Web 2.0 Success, MYCUSTOMER.com. Neil Davey, editor of MYCUSTOMER.com touches on one of the topics on which I regularly write and speak. Change management is a key to success in KM initiatives including those delivered using Web 2.0. He summarizes his article by writing,
There is a degree of organisational readiness that needs to be achieved in order to successfully deploy and absorb the changes associated with Web 2.0. And this change management has caught many businesses unaware.
Enterprise 2.0 Industry Matures as Businesses Grapple with its Potential, Enterprise Web 2.0. Dion Hinchcliffe always has something insightful to say about Enterprise 2.0. His April 22, 2008 posting is no different as he reports on a Forrester survey that states ”the Enterprise 2.0 space will be a 4.6 billion industry within 5 years.” He refers us to a recent report by Larry Dignan in his blog posting, Forrester: Social networking will be biggest enterprise 2.0 priority by 2013; Smaller businesses reticent.
Web 2.0 at Work: In Pursuit of Passion, This sketch presentation by Sacha Chua, an Enterprise 2.0 consultant at IBM and a passionate web 2.0 evangelist, is a fun look at the use of Web 2.0 for onboarding new employees.
