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This month we'll be finishing up our look at creating a Content Management System by considering good interface design, the creation of a template system, and how we can go about turning what I've described in this series into a fully blown system.

When evaluating an interface, I find it helpful to use Jacob Nielsen's "Ten Usability Heuristics" as a starting point. See here for his site. Here's how they apply to Intranet design.

1. Visibility of system status: The system must tell us what's going on at all times, and not let us get lost in a jungle of information and jargon. Many sites employ a 'breadcrumb' system, so your position within the site is displayed as:

Home -> Subcat1 -> Subcat2

2. Match between system and the real world: Metaphors are very important in computing, from the idea of a 'window', to employing push-buttons that appear to depress when clicked. If your company currently divides its data into 'divisions' and 'departments', for instance, this should be reflected in the design of the Intranet.

3. User control and freedom: The user should not only know their location within the site, but be able to rapidly navigating to the most important information wherever they are. A consistent set of vital links on each page will provide for this.

4. Consistency and standards: The site should be generally uniform throughout, in order to make navigation intuitive. Furthermore, most control panels and forms have a number of functions in common - cancel, save, etc. These should appear in the same location and with uniform design whatever the form is intended to achieve.

5. Error prevention: Prevention is better than cure, so it's obvious to say that the system shouldn't be riddled with bugs. However, a bad design can easily lead a user to make a mistake - for instance swapping around the order of 'Save' and 'Cancel' links, causing the user to loose work by choosing the wrong option.

6. Recognition rather than recall: The user shouldn't be left pondering on what a particular icon does, or which sequence of links he / she has to follow to find a useful snippet of information. This can be as basic as having 'alt' tags on images, that explain their meaning when the user hovers their mouse over them, or better full captions below icons. It may look less sleek, but it can help new users greatly.

7. Flexibility and efficiency of use: You want your Intranet to be quickly accessible to both your experienced staff, and to those just getting started. Provide links to broad sections, but also consider having "task oriented" links, such as "view today's news" or "update my profile". Ordering of links and grouping similar ones together will help.

8. Aesthetic and minimalist design: Many content management systems don't promote this, but aesthetics and minimalism are extremely important. Don't clutter the interface with polls and notices on irrelevant issues, stick to what you need people to read. Take Google as a perfect example of combining a minimalist design with an attractive interface.

9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: This includes concealing ugly system errors, which can flood newbie users with so much guilt and worry that they think they've cast the company into the pits of computational oblivion. A polite "sorry" message would be better all round.

10. Help and documentation: Again it's useful if documentation is task oriented, addressing the most common tasks a user will need to perform. Context-sensitive help is also a very good idea, so that clicking a small question mark on a page will tell the user about what they're looking at.

Clearly there are other design issues specifically with web-based design that Nielsen doesn't consider here — but it's a reasonable introduction that drives home a few messages — make navigation clear and consistent, don't bog the user down with jargon, prevent them from making mistakes, and if they do run into trouble then help them to recover it. With that in mind, let's consider the interface.