How to Design a Solid Intranet Homepage for Your Company (2024)

A wrongly designed homepage with messy web parts, badly grouped links and non-intuitive navigation can confuse and mislead users, thus affecting user adoption and the intranet’s ROI. So, it’s no wonder that the biggest effort in intranet design is focused on building the homepage.

Having 12-year experience in intranet design and development based on SharePoint, we know how to make an attractive and intuitive homepage. You are welcome to check intranet examples we’ve created for our customers and our interactivedemo of SharePoint intranet. In this article, we’ve summarized our knowledge on how to make a successful intranet homepage.

How to Design a Solid Intranet Homepage for Your Company (1)

Elements that can make an intranet homepage effective

Content demands for homepages go in line with overall intranet trends. Thus, modern internal portals are expected to provide easy access to content, streamline employee day-to-day work, communication and collaboration. Also, intranets should have social tunes to nurture corporate culture and support employee engagement. And in our practice, we’ve added social features even to a purely business intranet. Based on these considerations, an effective intranet homepage should have the following elements:

  • News and announcements. An intranet homepage is a strong promotional instrument, and placing news and announcements on it guarantees they don’t go unnoticed. Besides, this way of informing employees about news and events is more convenient than emailing.
  • Organizational chart. To collaborate effectively, employees should easily find and connect with each other. So, the homepage should provide access to an organizational chart that further directs users to employee profiles with such information as qualifications, language skills, contacts, and even hobbies.
  • Events. Having an event calendar in plain view supports employee engagement and increases event participation rates. Thus, a calendar on an intranet homepage can display and notify employees about upcoming business (conferences, workshops, training) and social (corporate events, sports competitions) events.
  • Search. An intranet homepage should have a search box to let employees find the required content quickly and easily.
  • Productivity tools. Access to productivity tools (e.g., Planner, Todoist, Any.do) right from the intranet homepage helps employees save time in their collaboration activities and increase performance, as they don’t have to repeatedly surf through the navigation of their digital workplace in search of relevant tools.
  • Communication tools. An intranet homepage should have tools like chats to for improved collaboration and faster decision-making.
  • Social features. An intranet homepage should provide interesting content to attract, engage and motivate users to visit the intranet more often. It can provide a media gallery where employees can add their pictures and videos, communities that will connect employees with similar hobbies, be it sports amateurs or book lovers. It can also display social networks integrated into the digital workplace for sharing formal and informal news. The homepage can also provide information about corporate discounts, employee birthdays, work anniversaries and display their success stories and leaderboards.
  • Quick links. This feature helps users speedily reach the most popular company intranet sections. The list of quick links depends on the company’s specifics. For example, a SharePoint HR portal that we’ve made for a construction company had such quick links as Payroll and Recruitment, Employee Handbook, Insurance Forms and Corporate Policies. The quick links area is not static and can be re-arranged according to the changing business needs.
  • Feedback. An intranet homepage should have surveys or polls that encourage employees to share their ideas, for example, on a location for a corporate event. Also, it should enable employees to easily give feedback on business and social events, policies, working processes, the intranet’s functionality and more.

Essential intranet homepage characteristics

When developing an intranet homepage, it’s crucial to pay attention not only to its content but also its look and feel. To be effective, eye-catching and engaging, the intranet homepage should have the following characteristics:

  • UI/UX design simplicity. Minimalistic homepage design is trending now. An intranet homepage shouldn’t be overcrowded with multiple apps and widgets. Thus, it will help users to focus on the most important content.
  • Mobile responsiveness. Cross-device optimization is important today as more and more employees prefer working remotely. So, the intranet homepage should be made in such a way as to render flawlessly on mobile devices.
  • Branding. To support corporate culture and nurture the sense of community, an intranet homepage should communicate the brand and promote the company’s mission and values. The intranet homepage should also closely align with the design of the company’s public website to provide corporate identity among employees.
  • Content personalization. An intranet homepage should deliver relevant content to relevant people. For example, personalized widgets can display upcoming events depending on an employee’s location, an employee’s progress in internal training and more.

How to make a great intranet homepage

Briefly, the main recommendations for designing a successful homepage can be formulated as follows:

  • Keep a homepage simple and clean.
  • Implement advanced search.
  • Embed a chat and other communication tools.
  • Leverage quick links.
  • Provide direct access to integrated software.
  • Focus on visuals, not on the plain text.
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How to Design a Solid Intranet Homepage for Your Company (2)

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How to Design a Solid Intranet Homepage for Your Company (2024)

FAQs

How to build an intranet for your company? ›

To create a site map and plan the structure of your intranet, you'll need to:
  1. Define its purpose and goals.
  2. Identify the audience and their needs.
  3. Gather content.
  4. Organize and structure your content.
  5. Create a visual representation of the structure (a site map).
  6. Test and refine your structure.
Feb 28, 2023

What is the best practice for the intranet home page? ›

The homepage is the first part of your intranet a user will see. It should immediately draw them in and encourage browsing. The user should get a high-level, compact overview of only the most relevant information and most recent news and events. A successful intranet will do all of this with excellent usability.

What does a good company intranet look like? ›

A valuable intranet may include essential elements such as news, employee directory, communities, or search capabilities. Moreover, an intranet should also have quality content to help employees carry out everyday tasks.

What is an example of an intranet? ›

Answer: Intranets are predominantly used by employees to search for information, communicate across an organization, and manage workflows. An example is a website that an airline company exclusively uses to deliver updates and information to its workforce.

How should an intranet be structured? ›

You should structure the information architecture of an intranet in different ways. The polar opposites are flat and deep hierarchies. Many top-level categories and few sub-levels characterize the flat hierarchy. The deep hierarchy has few top-level categories but many sub-levels.

How do you plan an intranet? ›

Follow these 10 steps to create and plan an intranet project
  1. Setup a goal.
  2. Define the scope and audience.
  3. Build a sitemap.
  4. What are the key applications you want to use?
  5. Understanding permissions.
  6. Create a homepage wireframe.
  7. Budget and resources.
  8. Timeline.
May 31, 2021

What is a successful intranet? ›

A great intranet allows people to get things done efficiently. The core functions of an intranet: Communication – allowing employees to connect and exchange easily. Collaboration – sharing skills and knowledge to reach common goals. Engagement – encouraging employees to get involved in company activities.

How do you make an engaging intranet? ›

22 Intranet Engagement Ideas:
  1. Use Feedback Surveys and Polls. ...
  2. Develop a Content Strategy Plan. ...
  3. Be Transparent About the Goals. ...
  4. Simplicity is Key. ...
  5. Beautiful Design. ...
  6. Offer a Customizable Intranet Experience. ...
  7. Encourage Content Creation. ...
  8. Offer a Mobile Experience.

How do I make my intranet interactive? ›

Encourage Sharing Industry Information On the intranet

If multiple employees share links to articles and reports they find online and elsewhere with social features to rank posts, it makes the job much easier. Team members can also add commentary about what they have read or heard.

What is intranet for beginners? ›

Intranet meaning and definition

It's a secure network for a company's employees and trusted partners to share information, communicate well, and work together effectively. Some of the key things an intranet can provide are: A way to safely share internal information.

What do I need for an intranet? ›

What Should an Intranet Include: Must-Have Components of an Intranet Platform
  • User-Friendly Interface. A user-friendly interface is the cornerstone of an effective intranet. ...
  • Document Management. ...
  • Collaboration Tools. ...
  • Customization Tools. ...
  • Mobile Accessibility. ...
  • Social Engagement Features. ...
  • Management and Analytics.
Sep 13, 2023

What features should an intranet have? ›

Internal communication features

Your intranet should allow team members to collaborate effectively by communicating with each other in real time. Look for an intranet platform that comes with in-built chat functions — or, better yet, integrates seamlessly with the communication tools your team already uses.

What is intranet strategy? ›

In business, an intranet strategy is the use of an intranet and associated hardware and software to obtain one or more organizational objectives. An intranet is an access-restricted network used internally in an organization. An intranet uses the same concepts and technologies as the World Wide Web and Internet.

How do you plan an intranet site? ›

How to Create an Intranet Project Plan in 10 Steps
  1. Why do you need a new intranet? ...
  2. 10 Steps For Creating your Intranet Project Plan. ...
  3. Define your goals. ...
  4. Establish metrics for success.
  5. Gathering information. ...
  6. Content and Site Map. ...
  7. Choose your Intranet Software. ...
  8. Consider pricing.

Can you create an intranet on Google? ›

One of the features of Google Workspace is Google Sites, which can be used to create an intranet for a company or organization. Google Workspace includes the tools to build a basic intranet, with Google Sites serving as the website foundation.

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