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Using technology in companies is becoming more and more attractive since employees should be supported in their daily work. Hence, intranets are developed in order to enhance knowledge sharing, productivity and structure. However, to establish a usable and user-related prototype of an intranet, it is important to consider the thinking processes of real users, i.e. their mental models. This thesis aims at investigating how to build a mental model and which pros and cons result from including the mental models of employees in intranet prototyping. The thesis at hand reviews the process of building intranets.

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Diana Winter was born in Halle/Saale, Germany, in 1985. In 2007, she graduated with a degree in Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrueck. Afterwards, she moved to Vienna, Austria and did her master studies in Applied Knowledge Management with graduation in 2009. She gained work experience in usability, prototyping and building interfaces.

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