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Design Best Practices

Build an engaging intranet

The thought is if it’s functional, who cares if it looks pretty? Well, it’s time to break the old fable of not judging a book by it’s cover because that’s exactly what your employees will do. Regardless of functionality, if your intranet is not designed to be engaging, it will not be used. Successful intranet design will ensure you intranet receives maximum adoption rates.

Why has intranet design traditionally fallen to the wayside? Intranet’s of the past required graphic design or IT resources to do the simplest of tasks. Not anymore! You no longer need design experience to create an aesthetically pleasing intranet design.

Follow these best practices:

  • Color Scheme

  • Brand Building

  • Conistent Theming

  • Engaging Name or Persona

  • Solid Architecture

Color Scheme

Color paints the way in which we interact with the world around us. Whether we’re consciously aware of it or not, color influences mood, emotions and even behavior. Because of this, choosing the right color palette for your intranet’s theme is critical to engagement rates.

The best way to begin is to select a color scheme.

Choosing those colors can be daunting, but inspiration may be right in front of you! Consider using your organizations style guide, or utilizing the color scheme on your public website or company logo. PS Simply upload your logo to have built-in tools color match and apply directly to your intranet theme.

A few best practices to consider when deciding on color:

  1. Stay away from heavy textures, drop shadows and gradients. Flat design is in!

  2. Stick to one or two bold, vibrant colors. Too many together can be an eye sore.

  3. Keep it simple. Monochromatic color schemes are increasingly popular.

  4. Negative space (or white space) is the key ingredient in a clean, minimalistic design.

Brand Building

We all know how important your ‘brand’ is to your customers, but did you know it is equally important to your employees?

Applying elements of your brand to your intranet makes it instantly recognizable to your employees.

While your intranet doesn’t have to have the exact same look and feel as your public site, your design should still align with your corporate image and culture.

When applying your brand to your intranet, pay special attention to your company logo and site header, as they’re usually the first thing users see. Branding should be strongest on the home page, as well as other toplevel and centralized pages such as dedicated department sites.

Consider what you believe is your brand’s language and personality. Your intranet is the perfect place to ‘preach’ so place your mission statement and moto strategically throughout. From titles of engaging applications to unique icons in your navigation, insert your brand voice!

Consistent Theming

The intranet design theme affects all aspects of your intranet’s appearance, such as it’s colors, graphics and fonts. Your theme can be applied to your intranet in it’s entirety, or you can provide some creative freedom to apply a theme to individual sites such as department sites.

There are no limits when it comes to creating your theme.

Simply maintain your colors and branding. You can update your theme at any time and save your creations! For instance, is Halloween coming? Create a spooktacular theme for the season, and return to the regular theme when ready. This will keep your intranet fresh and prevent it from going stale.

Your theme should include consistent text fonts, colors, backgrounds, link colors, navigation styles and more.

TIP - When it comes to themes, a great idea is to change your theme each season to match with a particular event or holiday in that season. For example, creating a Halloween theme in the Fall.

Engaging Name or Persona

Make your intranet a valued colleague! Put a name, face, or acronym to your intranet for added engagement.

Name

If you want to select a name for your intranet consider hosting a brainstorming session with a group of employees and create a poll in which the best idea wins. For example: New Seasons Market named their intranet The Pantry!

Acronym

Would you prefer a name that held some extra value? Have employees jot down words they believe best describes the purpose of your intranet and formulate an acronym.

For example, Veridian Credit Union’s intranet is named VERN, standing for Veridian Employee Resource Network.

Persona

Finally, let’s get personal with personas. To determine an intranet persona, come up with some key attributes you’d like your intranet to embody.

For example: Pima Federal Credit Union’s intranet is named Dwight. They established this persona based on the character from the hit TV show, The Office. He is known as the ‘company know-it-all’ so employees know Dwight is the place to go for any company resource.

Solid Architecture

You always need a solid foundation when it comes to building a home, and your intranet is home for all employee resources.

Architecture is the pre-planning stage of creating a solid foundation

Good architecture will ensure users can easily navigate your intranet, finding the information they need in a timely manner. Your architecture should be clear and intuitive. Rule of thumb: it shouldn’t take users more than 3 to 4 clicks to find theinformation they need. 

TIP - When labelling your top navigation, use ‘task-based’ terms as opposed to ‘topic-based’ terms. For example, if you have an area on your top navigation for policies, label it ‘Find a Policy” instead of ‘Documents’. This makes it more intuitive for users.