Posted on 3 June 2024 by John Scott
Intranet homepages are important. To achieve a truly successful company intranet that keeps users on the site and engaged, in addition to serving information in an intuitive and user-centric way, both design and user experience (UX) elements must come together seamlessly. Which is why we have put together 8 examples of company intranet homepage designs to inspire you...
Please watch our most recent video showcasing the latest 2023 SharePoint company intranet examples and read the accompanying article for in-depth insights.
One question we get asked frequently is how should I design my company intranet homepage or what should be on it? Invariably our answer is it depends, as there are a lot of variables to consider. One of the reasons for this is that the intranet homepage fulfils a number of different roles including a place to drive internal communications, the starting point for finding information and launching apps, a reflection of organisational culture, a place to stay on top of collaborative activities and tasks, and more.
No two intranet homepages are the same
Also, no two intranet homepages are the same. Sure, there are similarities, but intranets come in different forms; the design, layout, capabilities and scope are heavily influenced by the organisation they serve and the objectives of the intranet.
This is usually evident from the intranet homepage and its design. For example, in an organisation with a more laid-back culture or where the primary aim of the intranet is to engage and connect employees, you may have more social features on the homepage in prominent positions. If an intranet is serving a traditional law firm, perhaps there might be more of an emphasis on formal, corporate communications.
The importance of the company intranet homepage
Intranet homepages are important. They are usually the place employees pass through to other pages or apps and also where news is consumed. They can also make or break your adoption; have a really confusing or ugly intranet homepage and employees are far less likely to want to go and use the rest of it. Basically, you need to your intranet homepage design right.
Of course, the technology platform you are using will also heavily influence and dictate your homepage design but most intranet software (and also SharePoint Online) will give you some flexibility to configure your intranet homepage in the way that will work best for you.
Below are seven eight great intranet designs that we hope will get you inspired. Weve selected each of these as they have a different emphasis or flavour. Which one would best meet the needs of your organisation?
1. The Everything Everywhere intranet example
Gone are the days when employees would have to open their web browser to get to the intranet. In the modern digital workplace, it’s important to be where the employees are – surface your news, guidance and search to people in the apps they spend most of their workday.
For desk-based information workers, Microsoft Teams is quickly replacing email as a primary location to get work done, so why not serve your intranet content there? The intranet below is available within Microsoft Teams on desktop and mobile, but also in the SharePoint app too.
Even if you are not on Microsoft platforms, the aim should be to reach your internal customers where they most often reside.
Read about the Everything Intranet here.
Read our Entain modern digital workplace intranet case study here.
2. The personalised intranet homepage
Personalisation is a key attribute of any successful intranet, helping to ensure that content and experiences are relevant and valuable for every individual employee, and in turn driving overall intranet adoption. Personalisation in a SharePoint intranet can work by leveraging Microsoft Entra ID profile information, site permissions, the membership of different Microsoft 365 groups and any preference data to ensure a homepage is full of relevant items. Integrations with other systems can also show personalised views to help employees keep on top of their tasks.
Personalisation is essential in large, complex and global organizations where inevitably the workforce is very diverse with different needs. Personalisation is also usually linked with the ability to target communications to relevant audiences based on their role, location, hierarchy, division, length of tenure and preferences.
In the personalised homepage below:
- A personalised bar welcomes the user by name and provides the local weather, both indicating to the user that the experience is personalised, and also making the intranet feel more welcoming.
- News items can be targeted, with a mix of global and specific “local”, targeted items.
- Events are also targeted so they are relevant to the individual.
- An integration with Xoralia policy management software provides a personalised view of policy documents that need to be read and acted upon
- Another integration with a learning platform also shows a personalised view of upcoming training and training-in-progress
- A web part of quick links can also be personalised to sites and apps that the user frequently accesses.
3. The operational intranet homepage
Intranets can contribute to the smooth day to day running of operations within your company. By keeping employees informed about critical updates and of any required actions from right across your company, as well as giving them an overview of the status of different types of operation, the intranet plays an important role in daily work.
This design contains a number of useful features that can help employees keep on top of operations, including:
A noticeboard feature that includes a roll-up of updates from different functions and sites right across the organisation
Quick personalised access to workspaces and other software that are used by employees to complete perform their jobs
A Red Amber Green system status board, for example that could cover the status of IT or other operational systems.
An embedded social media feed that can show conversations and posts with customers, again in real time.
Our Bibby Financial Sevices case study has more information about this type of homepage.
4. The engaging internal communications intranet homepage
The primary aims of some intranets is to drive employee engagement with internal communications. Many of these will have an intranet home page that will focus on news and will also be visually appealing, using images and branding, while avoiding too many blocks of dense text that can be off-putting.
Many intranets also focus on helping employees get things done. Even if your intranet is more focused on engagement, it also pays to use the intranet to help employees complete tasks, as this tends to be a good driver of adoption, which in turn helps the performance of internal communications.
In the intranet homepage below:
- The intranet is visually appealing with an elegant colour palette.
- There is a use of striking images in the hero carousel to encourage click throughs.
- The news feed also use images and could be personalised and targeted for relevancy.
- Events are also presented in a similar way with the ability to register and add to a personal calendar.
- There is a Viva Engage feed that can also be used to surface more socially-orientated internal communications and internal engagement.
- The page also has a good balance of task-based features that help employees get things done and ultimately drive adoption, in turn increasing the number of reads of news stories.
5. The findability-focused intranet homepage
Findability is a key task for intranets, helping employees find information to carry out their daily role and get things done. The homepage design shown below is very different and encourages employees to find what they need with a large search box dominating the page, as well as a series of icons that could lead to either apps or critical areas of the intranet.
In this case the search is geared towards finding files from projects and research. Additionally there is a shortcut to upload content in the top-right – making the process of sharing information as straightforward as possible.
If your primary aim is to drive engagement through internal communications, then a more news-focused intranet homepage is likely. However, if this is too text heavy it can look vey drab. Having a high number of photos or images as well as colour blocks can really help your intranet homepage look far more appealing and also often drive the number of visits to particular items. The example below is a good example of presenting multiple stories in an attractive way.
6. The balanced intranet homepage example
Sometimes intranet teams find they have a high number of use cases for the intranet homepage or a large number of stakeholders with conflicting views on what the intranet homepage should look like. In these cases it can be good to sometimes go for a more balanced homepage that gives equity to a number of different elements.
For example, in the screenshot below there is a nice balance between internal communications, evergreen task-orientated content, social updates and even external news with:
- A prominent hero area with news items and also a separate web part with events details
- A feed of all the latest employee blogs, with user-generated content balancing corporate communications
- A How do I section offering information on how to complete tasks, with operatioinal information balancing more corporate updates
- A list of external website updates, again with an external focus balancing the internal focus of the news
Read more about RSSBs intranet here.
7. The uncluttered intranet homepage
Because intranet homepages carry out so many different functions, sometimes there is the temptation to pack a lot of information into a homepage. This can result in a cluttered and even overwhelming user experience that can be off-putting. Some teams, often influenced by the user experience on a mobile device, choose to create a less cluttered user experience, for example in the design below.
8. The Microsoft 365 front door intranet homepage
SharePoint Online is the leading base technology for intranets, providing a highly versatile, scalable and flexible platform with multiple intranet-ready web parts available. One clear advantage of SharePoint is the ability to integrate with other Microsoft 365 tools such as Viva Engage. This means that your intranet can effectively act as the “front door” to your Microsoft 365-powered digital workplace, supporting employee productivity, driving adoption of the Microsoft 365 tools and adding value to your intranet. Ultimately this means you are helping to increase the ROI of Microsoft 365.
Another key integration also means that you can access your SharePoint intranet through Microsoft Teams using Viva Connections.
In the example screenshot below:
- A web part surfaces conversations from a Viva Engage community, with the ability to interact without leaving the homepage.
- A Viva Connections dashboard helps employees complete key tasks (and can also be accessed from the mobile app).
- There is an embedded survey that uses Microsoft Forms.
- A dynamic chart with energy usage is embedded, that could be powered by Power BI from the Microsoft Power Platform.
- Personalisation is driven by Microsoft Entra IDs ensuring there is relevant news and updates.
Lightspeed365
Lightspeed365 makes it easy to create a beautiful and powerful employee intranet in SharePoint and Teams.
Introducing Lightspeed365 intranet solution
If your wanting to create a great looking intranet that covers both the design and functional element, then we highly recommend Lightspeed365.
Lightspeed365 is a product from Content Formula that adds custom web parts to your intranet, effectively extending the value of SharePoint, and filling many of the gaps in branding, design and functionality.
Because intranet and internal communication teams now have a more complete set of web parts to support a SharePoint Online intranet, it can prove to be highly cost effective, because it reduces the need to purchase a more expensive “in-a-box” intranet solution.
Examples of some of the most popular Lightspeed 365 web partsinclude:
- A page tour, highlighting key intranet features for new staff.
- Branding customiser, extending branding and theming options for SharePoint.
- Share price, allowing teams to embed a stock price on the homepage.
- App launcher, allowing users to personalise their own links to apps.
- Tabs, allowing multiple web parts to be displayed in a tabbing format to save page real-estate.
- Table of content to appear at the top of a page to support findability for long-read content.
- Site provisioning, to embed the provisioning process for different Microsoft collaboration sites including Teams.
- External social feeds from different sources.
- Floating search, providing the ability to add a contextual search anywhere on a page.
- Feedback, allowing structured feedback on the intranet and its content from any page.
- Welcome bar, for personalised welcome messages to users to create a more engaging experience.
- Noticeboard, for employee classified adverts and notices.
- And more!
What intranet design works best for you?
Hopefully, we’ve given you some ideas for company intranet examples and some of the factors to consider when designing your homepage. What one works best for you? If you’d like to talk to us about intranet homepages and intranet design, then why not get in touch?
