Co-Author Tyler Sauerteig

 

In partnership with the Worldwide Intranet Challenge, we’ve applied econometric principles to the results of over 200 intranet surveys and… statistically pinpointed which intranet attributes most impact a user’s perception of their intranet.

This first post in this seven week series is focused on the data analysis of  “look” factors — showing what employees prefer to look and find when they view their company’s intranet.

Two Things Employees Want Their Intranet To Do

1. Help them understand the values and culture of their organization
2. Have content labelled with an owner

These findings are based on Worldwide Intranet Challenge survey participants rating the importance of the following statements about the “Look and Feel” of their company’s intranet.

• I like the intranet homepage
• I like the look and feel of the intranet
• Information on the intranet is easy to read
• The intranet has a consistent page layout
• Content is labelled with an owner
• I can personalize the intranet
• The intranet helps me understand our values & culture

I was actually kind of surprised by these findings. I personally would have placed “consistent page layout” and “ability to personalize” as having a bigger impact on how highly users rank their intranet. In fact, not only was I wrong about personalization having a positive impact, our study showed that:

Free Download: What Your Employees Want From Your Intranet

In this download, you will find the following information:

• Ways to increase your employees’ rating of your company’s intranet
• How to invest your intranet redesign money to get the biggest return
• Key intranet fundamentals to ensure employee engagement

Get Your Free Download

Being able to personalize the company intranet actually has a negative impact on the way that employees value their intranet.

On further reflection, this makes sense. “Too much choice” has been scientifically proven to create the neurological response of “unhappiness” in we humans. In fact, this was one of the research items I covered in my talk at the 2012 ThoughtFarmer Social Intranet Summit (please hold all comments on chosen hairstyle and attire that day, I promise it was appropriate).

Do you agree?

Are you surprised by these findings? Which attributes would you rank the highest? I genuinely look forward to your comments. I think there is a good discussion to be had here.

To see the details on how we came to the above conclusions, please grab a (strong) cup of coffee and read the following section.

Behind the Numbers

The econometric issues of specification error, serial correlation, and heteroskedasticity are all accounted for within our data set.

Understanding What The Coefficient & P-Value Tell Us

This chart below shows the coefficient and the p-value for each statement within the category “rate the following statements on the look of the intranet.” The coefficients tell us how much the rating of the intranet in the valuation question, “In general, I would rate the intranet as,” changes for a one ranking change in each question. The p-value tells us the confidence level that we could conclude that the sign on the coefficient is correct. In other words, if the coefficient was positive and the p-value was 0.10, we could conclude the question positively affects the valuation of your intranet with 90% confidence. As a general rule of thumb in statistics, a p-value of 0.10 or 90% confidence is generally where the cut off is for claiming a variable is statistically significant.

Statement	Coefficient	P-Value
I like the intranet homepage	0.357	0.160
I like the look and feel of the intranet	-0.105	0.720
Information on the intranet is easy to read	-0.062	0.608
The intranet has a consistent page layout	-0.019	0.890
Content is labelled with an owner	0.148	0.097
I can personalize the intranet	-0.187	0.031
The intranet helps me understand our values and culture	0.259	0.018

Adjusted R2: 0.160

• The adjusted-R2 value tells us that 16% of the variance in the valuation of the intranet is described by the questions within the category of statements on the look of the intranet.

P-Value Tests:

The questions that we found to be most important to your employees based on the look of your intranet were the statements of, content is labelled with an owner and the intranet helps me understand our values and culture. Also, the ability to personalize your intranet was found to actually decrease the rating that people place on their intranet through the study.

• With 90% confidence we can conclude that having content on your intranet being labelled with an owner, increases the valuation ranking that your company’s intranet received.
• With 98% confidence we can conclude that the intranet helping people understand the values and culture of the organization increases the valuation ranking that your company’s intranet received.
• With 96.5% confidence we can conclude that being able to personalize the company intranet actually has a negative impact on the way that employees value their intranet.

Interpretation Of The Coefficients:

• When looking at only the look and feel statements, given that your answer to the WIC statement “I like the intranet home page” was ranked one rating higher (better) in the WIC ranking system for that statement, the way that you were ranked in the rating of your intranet in the valuation question “In general, I would rate the intranet as” was, on average, .357 ranks higher (better), holding all other variables constant.

• When looking at only the look and feel statements, given that your answer to the WIC statement “I can personalize the intranet” was ranked one rating higher (better) in the WIC ranking system for that statement, the way that you were ranked in the rating of your intranet in the valuation statement “In general, I would rate the intranet as” was, on average, 0.187 ranks lower (worse), holding all other variables constant.

For those that are not found statistically significant, you can still interpret their coefficients because the data sheds light on them being positive or negative for the given data set. However, this is with little confidence and makes it a very risky move to focus on something not statistically significant for your intranet re-build or creation.

We hope you gained insights about your intranet look and what really helps your employees become more engaged on your company intranet. Our next blog post will deal with the statements in the category of finding information on your intranet.