Step Two Designs has announced it has developed and published a set of publicly-released intranet heuristics. This intranet review toolkit is designed to provide intranet managers and designers with a method of assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their intranet. It contains a set of heuristics, allowing a detailed intranet review to be conducted that focuses on a range of functionality, design, and strategy.

The Intranet Review Toolkit has been published under a Creative Commons license, allowing it to be freely downloaded and used (as long as certain conditions are met, as outlined in the document). The heuristics are based on identified best practices in intranet and Web site design. Additional references are included as an appendix to the document. The Intranet Review Toolkit covers eight aspects: intranet home page; site structure and navigation; search; page layout and visual design; intranet content; news; staff directory; and intranet strategy and management. The Toolkit has been published as a Word document, designed to be filled in by the intranet reviewer. Space is provided for comments against each of the heuristics, and a total score is calculated for each of the sections. There is no charge for downloading the Intranet Review Toolkit.

(www.steptwo.com.au)