Intranet Design Annual 2012: 10 Intranets With Great Usability. Are these really the 10 best intranets of 2012? This month saw the publication of Neilsen Norman Group’s intranet design annual. Over the past 12 years, this annual snapshot has charted the evolution of intranets from the unloved stepchild of the web family to business-critical tool. Intranetizen takes a look at some of the key findings in this year’s publication and finds the conclusions challenging. Continuous improvement One of this year’s winners, Staples, brings home the award for the second time, joining an elite band of multi-award winners. NNg argues “these organizations recognise that intranet design is never “set and forget”… Instead of perpetually sustaining their first winning designs, these companies continued to progress”.
However, I don’t entirely agree with NNg’s conclusion. This doesn’t demonstrate continuous improvement at all, but is instead indicative of the ‘intranet as a project’ problem. Social The 2012 annual finds a growth in enterprise social networking. But just what does social mean on an intranet? Team Size. 17 Great Wireframing Tools for Web Designers. “Time is of the essence” is a bold statement that definitely applies to any design career. We all get paid by the hour, so the faster we can work, the more money we can make. This means that being able to get up and running on our design work has become a necessity. This is where wireframing comes in. You can get a general idea of what will work and what doesn’t, saving you time when developing websites. It allows you to focus on the content of each page, making each page serves its purpose to the best of its ability.
Balsamiq Balsamiq offers low-tech wireframes in the form of sketches so that you focus on content and functionality rather than design and looks. ProtoShare ProtoSahre focuses on collaborative wireframing between a team. Adobe Fireworks Especially with CS6, wireframing and mockups have never become easier. Pencil Pencil is an open source GUI prototyping tool. Axure JumpChart JumpChart is another wireframing tool that boasts the ability to create rapid wireframes and prototypes. 10 Free Wireframing Tools for Designers. This series is supported by Ben & Jerry's Joe, Ben & Jerry's new line-up of Fair Trade and frozen iced coffee drinks. Learn more about it here. Wireframing is a crucial step in web design and development as it allows for rapid prototyping and helps to pinpoint potential problems early in the process.
It can be invaluable to have a visual representation of content, hierarchy and layout. Wireframes make it easier to communicate ideas, reduce scope creep, cut down on project costs (due to fewer design revisions later), and enable greater upfront usability and functionality testing. This post highlights 10 of the best free wireframing tools available, including standalone applications, web-based tools and browser add-ons. If you're partial to a particular wireframing tool available for free download, let us know in the comments. 1. Mockingbird is a web-based beta software based on the Cappuccino framework to create, link together, preview and share wireframes of your website or application. 2. Case study – The British Council. Feature posted 26 Oct 2006 in Volume 10 Issue 2 Case study – The British Council The British Council deployed social network analysis to help managers understand how knowledge is shared in the organisation – and what they could do to make knowledge sharing more effective.
By Bonnie Cheuk The main purpose of the British Council is to build mutually beneficial relationships between people in the UK and other countries, to promote the English language and to increase appreciation of the UK’s creative ideas and achievements. Its remit is broadly analogous to that of Alliance Française in France, the Goethe-Institut in Germany and the Confucius Institute in China. But with offices in more than 110 countries and 7,000 staff working towards the same goals but in a diverse range of cultures, there is a clear need for knowledge sharing, which certainly is not easy to introduce among such a widely dispersed workforce. The British Council is therefore no stranger to knowledge management (KM). SNA theory.