Regular visitors to this blog may recall reading about SAS’ intranet, the SAS Wide Web. It’s the internal gateway to practically everything at SAS – from internal operations systems and departmental sites to product news and benefits information. And of course, it’s our primary internal communications media outlet.

In September, we rolled out a totally redesigned home page. The old page had served us well, but it was seven years old, which is a mighty long time in tech terms. Consider that in 2006, when the SWW launched its last new design, the iPhone had not yet been introduced, Pluto was still a planet, and people were asking what in the world “Web 2.0” meant.

Today’s modern technologies offer so much more in terms of managing and displaying content, and the new design takes full advantage, incorporating such features as:

• Dynamic feature article and video carousels.
• Enhanced graphics.
• Variety of videos and photo galleries accessible right from the home page.
• Customizable icons for favorites.
• Social media streaming.

Moreover, the new design allows more news and company updates from more channels to appear for longer periods of time, a request consistently heard from employees.

The project represented an extensive development effort involving staff from Internal Communications, IT and Corporate Creative, as well as generous and invaluable assistance from other groups around the company such as R&D’s Accessibility and Applied Assistive Technology, and the Usability Lab. Such assistance helped us achieve a goal we are particularly proud of: The new site is completely keyboard and screen reader accessible!

It took approximately nine months from conception to delivery (pun intended – it is, after all, our “baby”), which is a remarkably short time when you consider that on average, creating a new intranet or intranet redesign requires 42 months, according to Nielsen Norman Group’s Intranet Design Annual 2013.

Initial reaction was mixed – some folks were content with the old layout while others lauded the changes – but it didn’t take long for the site to gain widespread approval. In the first 60 days from the September launch, we had more than 11,000 unique visitors to the site, with a sharp increase in the number of internal news articles visited, as well as nearly a twofold increase in the number of internal URLs in general that users have clicked to from the home page.

One common complaint during early testing was that the automated feature carousel was distracting, so we added a pause button. After 60 days, however, just 630 employees had the pause button activated, while another 214 had tried the pause button but turned it off.

Currently, the new design is deployed only in the U.S., but we’re already working on migrating all of the country “mirror” sites around the world to the same look and feel. And once we’ve finished that, we’ll start considering possible enhancements that we and our users have already begun to identify.

So will we be scratching this itch again in another seven years? Well, who knows what new technologies and communication trends will come our way -- and how rapidly -- in the future, but for now, we’re delighted to have a shiny, new internal communications outlet that boasts modern technology, contemporary design, enhanced functionality, accessibility features and more.

So, are you itching to update or redesign your intranet? Or perhaps you’ve recently done it. If so, tell us about it in the comments section below.