Intranet Design and Content Standards

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Design and content standards explain how the content should be added and maintained, as well as the design elements to be included. Traditionally, personnel do not go to an intranet to hang-out. They are seeking a phone number, a strategy, a policy, a form, information about a branch or unit, the latest news, etc. - then they are gone until they have another informational need. Therefore, it is important that there is consistency and predictability in the information architecture, content layout, and design elements as familiarity breeds find-ability

Information architecture is the structural design. It is the art and science of organizing and labelling to support find-ability and usability. It is best represented by a content map of the major content categories and the sub-categories and how they all relate to each other. In addition the information architecture encompasses navigational elements including searches, site maps, help / feedback, etc. and need not be in a parent category and other elements available in the main navigation banner and / or footer.

The information architecture is driven by the end-users perspective, as the main aim is to optimize the site to improver the end-users experience. Reducing clutter and understanding the motivation of end-users are important factors.

The first page should advertise what is in the site. What the site is about, what products it has, what the news is, and how to make contact. Use pictures and summary text. Images should help to understand / describe the content. The key question to ask is; "is this helping or hindering visitors?". Use standard design so it mimics major sites, so people can understand and use it quickly.

Information Architecture

The information architecture for the intranet captures the three main pillars of intranet content: Organizational Information, Functional Information, and Social Information.

Mega-Menus
These have been around for a while, but most organizations with whom I speak have not looked at these. The idea is this - rather than have so many top-level navigation items, try adding a few action-oriented menu items, with many options for drill-down.

Task-Oriented Grouping
Most of you reading this likely have an intranet that is organized by department and follows the org chart nearly verbatim. This is an "old way" of thinking, because if we're honest, how many of you come to work to "work with HR" or "work with Engineering?" We come to work to do tasks - to get work done - so ditch the org chart and start thinking about the task rather than the department. Another reason why this strategy works is because new employees almost never know what every department does. So organizing by department can be confusing for new employees as well. Oh yeah, and what about age-old problem of "Where does that live…HR, IT, Legal?" This often minimizes or eliminates these issues. But be careful, sometimes org structure is all that your readers know, so there may be change management issues with the task-oriented approach.

Action-Oriented Labels
This tactic relates more to links that are on pages, rather than navigation items, but we have seen behavior change when the language used on links is changed to be more action-oriented.

Promote Top Areas
Every intranet platform today has the ability to promote popular links or areas, yet many never leverage this functionality. The truth is, it's popular for a reason, so surface that information for others to see.

Under the current structure, this information is organized as follows:

UNEP Category: Information relating to the structure UNEP as an organisation, including the people, divisions and offices, and other content of that nature is a stand-alone categorisation.
ESSENTIALS Category: Information relating to the strategies, processes, and work-outcomes of the organisation, including strategies, policies, processes, templates, and other information of that nature is a stand-alone categorisation.

Well populated profiles are important to enable personnel to allow a thriving network of thematic experts to identify one-another or to seek out individuals with specific skills or knowledge.

The profile consists of a photo, back photo and key information.

Design Standards

The pages in the intranet should be clean and simple. Personnel should be able to visit any page on the intranet and know where to click within 2-3 seconds.

Attention Span - Keep pages clean and simple. A new employee should be able to visit any page on your intranet and know exactly where to click or go next within 2-3 seconds.

Consistency Is Key – Nothing drives readers crazy like inconsistency, and this includes inconsistency in design, layout, navigation, terminology, etc. Familiarity breeds findability.

(a) Home Page: The design of the home page is managed and determined by the governing body of the intranet. Every intranet that wants to have high adoption rates needs to create homepages where the content changes frequently (ideally, daily or even more frequently if it can be managed.) It should show information that is not only relevant to topics being discussed across the company, but it also tailored to the individual. The intranet homepage is the most hotly-contested real estate on the site, with every business area hoping to have a direct link to their information. Every intranet team should have a simple policy outlining what does (and more importantly, doesn’t) get published to the home page.

(b) Category Menus: The design of the category menus is managed and determined by the governing body of the intranet.

(c) Division / Office / Regional Office Spaces: The design of the division

(d) Embedding Electronic Processes: Processes should be embedded in the intranet. This will transform it into a place of productivity.

Creating accessible web content.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a comprehensive overview of how to make your content accessible to all persons, including persons with disabilities. weCollaborate has an accessible checker installed that allows you to check your content against these standards. There are some limitations with this checker, https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/accessibility-checker-eap-1055686972.html

Intranet content should be specifically for UNEP personnel, written for the screen, and edited from the view-point of the content consumer. The content should also be compliant with the UN Editorial Guidelines, Terminology Database, and (if relevant) comply with the rules around maps and territorial boundaries.

Content accuracy

In an intranet content is king. Therefore, if content is out-of-date, obsolete, or incorrect it diminishes trust and confidence in the entire site. It is for this reason strict 3 monthly content review checks are required.

If this is done regularly it is a quick process of entering into the edit mode of the page, reading the content, and then clicking update. Most space editors only have between 5-15 pages so it shouldn't take more than 15-20 minutes to do this quarterly review.

Personnel-focused

The content should be personnel or content consumer focused. It would be beneficial if a client is involved in the editing of the content to ensure it is digestible and understandable. This includes

Writing for screen

A rule of thumb is that content written for the screen should be half as long as content written for print or other mediums. The flicker of pixels causes eye fatigue and content in large blocks can be overlooked. Therefore, it is important that information is presented in chunks, often referred to as the inverted pyramid format. This includes using headings, sub-headings, bullets, call-outs, expandables, sub-pages, and white space to create content that is both presentable and consumable.

The inverted pyramid format refers to an approach whereby content starts at the highest level and then progressively cascades down to more granular detail. For example, start with a broad overview of a topic and then chunk information into groups (i.e. aims could be one chunk, progress another chunk, etc.). The chunked information could be presented in the form of an expandable that will allow the reader to quickly see what is on the page and navigate to the most relevant content.

Duplicate content

The information architecture sets out what content should go under which category and sub-category. It is important that this is adhered to as otherwise it creates duplicate content throughout the site. Duplicate content leads to confusion when it is updated in some areas, but not in others. Furthermore, it creates confusion in the information architecture as diminishes the familiarity breeds find-ability principle.

Search

Content should undergo the search test. When new content is added search for it, and if it doesn't come up in the top 5 search items it is hidden.

Feedback

Quarterly survey of three things the intranet should start doing and three things the intranet should stop doing.

Images

Images used should be gender sensitive (contain both men and women) and should not propagate gender stereotypes. Women must not only be portrayed as ‘victims’ but also as ‘agents of change’. Additionally, language used should be inclusive and should not exclude one group over another or create an impression that one group is more superior than others. Avoid using male words for all humanity (e.g. ‘mankind’ and other similar words).
Persons with disabilities, referred to as that.

Content updates

It must also be fresh. Add an expiration date that forces the author or publisher to revisit, renew or archive content. If it’s not kept up to date, the content is automatically deleted.

In general, news pieces should not duplicate efforts by re-posting content already available elsewhere, including on the UNEP website. When required, the intranet content should add value to news stories by providing staff context and by bringing to their attention core organisational knowledge
Material posted should be created in a manner that provides accessibility to the widest audience, including persons with disabilities

News should add value by providing the story from the perspective of personnel and bring attention to core organizational knowledge. Static content should be regularly checked and updated to ensure the most current version is available.

Unmanaged content on the intranet can lead to the intranet becoming a dumping ground for irrelevant, out-of-date content. This section of the governance document is particularly relevant for intranet authors and to a lesser extent, may be used by approvers and content writers.

Topics within the publishing content and documents section may include information on:

templates
related links
metadata
publishing documents (including size limits)
naming documents
versioning
promoting content to the intranet (from other information repositories)
archiving
images (including format, resizing, use of)
organising content
content review process
removing obsolete content
writing for the web

News stories

In submitting news stories, the following procedures should be followed:

Articles should be submitted by email to weCollaborate@un.org at least 48 hours before the requested posting date or time. The article text should be included in the body of the email or as an attachment in a Microsoft Word document (PDFs are not accepted). Duty station editors may enter local articles directly into the CMS and publish them. If an article is to be published globally, please alert the weCollaborate team after entering it into the CMS and before publishing it locally, for revision and a publication date.
Last-minute requests will be considered on an ad-hoc and exceptional basis.
Emergency or urgent information will be posted on a priority basis.
Articles should be accompanied by related photographs (JPG format) or graphic images (PNG, GIF or JPG format) in 16x9 dimensions. Minimum resolution for photographs should be 300 dpi.
Staff should ensure they have the proper authorization for submitting articles before submission to weCollaborate. The weCollaborate team reserves the right to consult with the relevant department or office prior to posting submitted articles.
“Staff Voices” submissions must include the name(s) of the author(s), which will be posted along with the content.
All posted stories not clearly identified as part of the “Staff Voices” series will contain a date, a posting location and an author. Attribution should usually be at the departmental or office level, as these stories are posted in the author’s official, not personal, capacity.
Links to websites not affiliated with the UN System shall be used sparingly and limited to those links that complement a story. Any such links included in posted stories shall not be construed as UN endorsement of the content therein.
Articles should be submitted in English and French. Articles submitted in only one language will be translated by the weCollaborate team.

Length of stories:

The length of all stories should not exceed 350 words

Announcements

All staff members with weCollaborate editor accounts may post announcements. The weCollaborate team may post announcements and events at the request of organizational units on an ad hoc basis.

Event announcements are limited to those organized by UN entities. Events taking place in locations other than at UN premises must be sponsored by UN entities. Participation in events taking place during work hours should be according to normal official rules and regulations.

All entities submitting announcements and/or events are encouraged to submit them in a timely manner, at least 24 hours before the requested posting date or time. Experience has shown that it is more effective to make an announcement closer to the date of the event than too far in advance.

The weCollaborate team has the responsibility for removing or reformatting announcements or events to ensure a standardized approach.

The weCollaborate Editorial Board is chaired by the Director, Outreach Division, Department of Global Communications, and includes representatives of other departments and offices.

The Editorial Board provides guidance on urgent and complex issues brought to its attention by the weCollaborate team.

Requests for the editing and/or removal of content already posted shall be considered by the weCollaborate team and, if necessary, by the Editorial Board. If a story is removed in its entirety, it will be replaced with an explanatory note signed by the weCollaborate supervisor, indicating by whom and why the content was asked to be removed.

Comments, questions and concerns about article content and/or about the actions of and editorial decisions taken by the weCollaborate team may, in the first instance, be submitted to weCollaborate@un.org. When applicable, such correspondence shall be shared with the relevant department, office and/or content submitter in a timely manner.

Further recourse about the actions of and editorial decisions taken by the weCollaborate team may be brought to the attention of the Editorial Board.

Comments

Guidelines for Commenting on weCollaborate Stories

All content must adhere to the UN’s core values of integrity, professionalism, and respect for diversity as well as to the Staff Rules and Regulations.
They should be consistent with the standards of conduct for the international civil service, 2001 [contained in ST/SGB/2002/13], and should respect the principle of not airing personal grievances.
Please do not use names unless you have the permission of the person concerned.
All comments are screened to ensure they comply with this policy. Comments are not anonymous and you will be responsible for what you write.
Comments may not be monitored or answered by the authoring department. If you have a question that requires a response, please contact the author directly.
Comments should be no longer than 150 words.

Research suggests that the following points are key:

Written text should be in short, easy to read chunks
Content shouldn’t be excessive in length, particularly if it is going to be read on a mobile device
Bullet points should be used to emphasize key points
Images are very important to attracting readers, illustrating points and breaking up text
Short multi-media videos enhance content, making engaging people far easier
Content should have helpful links to further related information, either through manual links or from automated recommendations made by the intranet itself
Pages, as much as possible, should sit within the intranet, providing a seamless, integrated experience
Readers should be able to react to and interact with the content, either through feedback, comments or liking a page

Content Standards

Content posted on the intranet should open communication among staff and between management and staff, help staff accomplish their work, explain policies and procedures relevant to all staff, provide updates and context on reform initiatives, inform staff about the UNEP’s activities worldwide, recognise staff initiatives and accomplishments, and help build a sense of community.
The content posted should be edited based on an end-reader perspective. Considerations such as the likelihood of the end-reader finding it where it has been posted, readability or digestibility for end-readers, and location in search features should be high considerations.
The content used in the intranet is held by numerous personnel in various locations around the world. Therefore, a decentralised content management approach has been adopted. This presents challenges associated with multiple-content contributors.

The content in the intranet should strive to attain high standards of inclusivity. This includes content decisions that allow accessibility by persons with disabilities. The UNEP Intranet Design and Content Standards set out which high-value content requires not only written, but also verbal versions.

Bite-Sized Delivery - Your content should be delivered in a bite > snack > meal fashion. In other words, first give the reader a bite (a simple link), then a snack (maybe a mega menu or additional options), then the meal (the entire page or content). See the example here of the White House site, where "Issues" is the bite, the list of top issues is the snack, and any one of the issues is the meal (where the "meat" is).

ROT stands for Redundant, Outdated, Trivial, and is a great way to classify your content. ROT is just what it sounds like, digital noise that almost always prohibits effective knowledge discovery and often leads to massive reader frustration. And at first glance, you may think that the largest "cost" of ROT is storing all of the content that is not adding value, but that's the least of your worries.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: You try to find something in a specific location on your intranet, but you can't find it, so you use the intranet's global search, but you still can't find it. So after spending nearly an hour, you ultimately have to ask a colleague, who then emails it to you. BUT, rather than store this in the intranet where it should be, you save it locally 9or keep it in your email), so you can quickly find it next time without the heartburn. Anyone? A lot of things have happened here. From reader frustration, to low adoption, to circumventing the systems (storing artifacts locally so you no longer have to search for it), to restricting collaboration and knowledge sharing. And so it goes with ROT. It can cause a lot of grief. Start by identifying what the R, O, and T are in your organization. Our governance toolkit includes guidance, scripts and templates for helping you to identify ROT within your organization.

Put people and culture at the heart of your intranet. Put photo gallery at the bottom of the home page, people will scroll down to see people-centric content.

Leadership has to model the behaviour they want to see on the intranet.

Move or create leadership blogs on your intranet. It’ll encourage people to interact, and your employees are always interested in getting insight into leadership’s perspectives and personalities. One pro tip: keep the content human.

Build your intranet based on your organizations’ goals and needs, not on what you think other organizations are doing. Intranets may seem generic, but a good intranet takes into consideration your industry and its specific challenges.

Have your leadership team and executives commit to using the tool. Town halls and key initiatives are great ways for leadership to exercise the tool in visible ways.

The homepage is the front page of the intranet. A sub-site is a collection of web pages that make up a subsidiary site of the intranet.

Site owner: This is the person responsible for the content and quality of the sub-site. The site owner (usually head of department or functional head) may delegate intranet content and development tasks to a nominated representative (the site editor or section manager).

Site section manager or editor: This is the person who updates and maintains a web page or collection of pages as specified in the webpage footer of that site.

The following UNEP staff have been delegated with intranet responsibilities: Vice-Chancellor; Senior Executive Group; Chief Marketing Officer; Manager, Internal Communications; Section managers, editors and content owners. Responsibility for monitoring implementation and compliance – Enterprise Solutions Section will be responsible for reviewing this policy and related guidelines and procedures, monitoring implementation and compliance, and high-level decision making relating to the design and content of the intranet, including top level information architecture.

Record Retention Policy

This policy regulates the retention and disposal practices of content currently posted on the internal communications platform, UNEP Intranet- weCollaborate.

The purpose of the weCollaborate retention schedule is to help content owners:

Be aware of how long their content (stories, classifieds, announcements) will be kept.
Make archiving decisions for their important information (especially if it is only available on weCollaborate).
Know when pages need to be updated.

The disposal of outdated content on the other hand will take place every two years. This process will be pursued in agreement between the weCollaborate Team and the content owner.

The benefits related to implementation of this policy are: preservation of institutional memory, access to up-to-date information, and, ultimately, maximization of the system’s performance in terms of fast retrieval of info.

Retention criteria

The retention schedule assigned to weCollaborate content is based on the importance of information as a historical record for the Organization.

Permanent retention is recommended for some categories as they are a reflection of the work and the spirit of UN staff, for example, “News and Staff Stories.” This information will be stored in the system indefinitely or until a different digital website repository system becomes available.

Other categories (1 year, 30 days, etc.) are listed below. Note that some information displayed on the weCollaborate homepage is not retained by the system, including: Most popular, Toolkit, Quick links, and Social media corner.

Records identified for deletion will be subjected to content owner‘s review before their removal of the system. The selection criterion is inactivity, which means that the page has not been updated in two years or more. The content owner will receive electronic correspondence with links to the respective pages for review and will have up to 45 days either to update it or request deletion. Otherwise, after 45 days, the pages will be removed from the UNEP Intranet -weCollaborate platform.

Controlled documents - such as quality manuals, procedures, SGBs, and AIs - should be saved in local drives outside of weCollaborate.

This information applies to all Duty Stations.

Retention schedule for UNEP Intranet – weCollaborate content

Content category	Retention time	Comments
News and Staff Stories	Permanent	Including images, links, and comments. Contact weCollaborate to find items older than 3 years
Staff Directory	No retention	Administered by OICT
Classifieds	30 days	Classifieds unpublished after 30 days; photos and files deleted after 60 days
Announcements and Events	Permanent; unpublished after 1 year	Contact weCollaborate to find items older than 1 year
Job Openings	No retention	This information comes from Inspira.
In the Spotlight	1 year
Staff Union Articles	Permanent	Including images, links, and comments
Departmental Pages	Permanent. Will be reviewed every 2 years.	These pages should be updated at least once every two years; subject to review
Files	Retention subject to use. Will be purged if inactive for 2 years.	Files, including images, are subject to review.

Homepage components and purpose

Content page layout and components

Logo and toolbar

Search and how it works

Main menu structure and purpose

Sub menu structure, purpose and editing

Footer

Use of colours and fonts

Site security including levels that have been applied to various sections

Applications

Best Practices

	Overview	Source	Ideas to Actions
Enterprise Search	Effective intranet search functionality, therefore, calls for: Integration with any existing cloud-based storage platforms, to provide a single point of search Clear governance on content management – for example, content titles, summaries, keywords/tags, ownership and accountability, and due process for reviewing expired pages Regular review of search analytics to determine any searches that have failed to generate results or perhaps pages without keywords	https://www.interact-intranet.com /blog/10-things-every-intranet-should-have/	Install an enterprise search feature
Employee Recognition	A peer-to-peer recognition tool empowers your readers to take ownership for recognising and rewarding one another can not only provide a much-needed boost to morale and engagement, but also give readers the means to take ownership of their intranet.	https://www.interact-intranet.com /blog/10-things-every-intranet-should-have/
Employee Recognition	Put recognition on the home page.
Mobile	Mobile optimisation can include the ability to submit photos via a mobile phone.
Mobile	Make sure it’s mobile-friendly technologies and that the mobile experience is carefully planned around key scenarios that your readers need to accomplish. Ensure to test on several different platforms and in various environments. Make sure it’s search-friendly and that team sites are easy to find and navigate across devices.	https://www.elevatepoint.com /perspectives/10-tips-building-intranet-employees-will-actually-use/

Applicant’s Declaration:

I acknowledge that I have read and accepted all the conditions of the ADCQ Internet/E-mail Access and Use Guidelines.

I understand that all Internet usage is monitored and logged. I understand that I may be required to justify my Internet usage.

Signed: Date:

Supervisor’s Declaration:

I acknowledge that I have read the ADCQ Internet/E-mail Access and Use Guidelines. I have verified that the above officer understands the implications of these guidelines, and certify that the requirements of this officer’s position warrants regular and frequent access to Internet resources.

Supervisor’s Name: ____________________________