Intranet redesigns are not small projects. There is a significant amount of design, usability and information architecture work, not to mention the laborious content migration process. What is launched is almost certainly an improvement on the old intranet, but the question must be asked: how much of an improvement?

In too many cases, the vast majority of effort is devoted to the intranet home page, the overall information architecture and the page layout. Lower pages in the site are often migrated more- or-less unchanged, with much of the internal structure within sections only slightly updated from the old intranet.

This concentrated focus on just the global elements of the site, however, may not be enough to deliver real benefits to staff. Instead, the design process must be continued all the way to the bottom of the intranet.

This briefing will explore this idea, giving examples of where efforts in the design process could be focused.

Global intranet elements

The design of the intranet home page is undoubtedly very important, as outlined in the earlier briefing Full site redesign? Start by addressing the home page.

It is also important to create an effective and consistent page layout that can be used throughout the site, underpinned by a vastly improved information architecture (site structure). These are the areas that typically receive the greatest attention during an intranet redesign. Once finalised, the existing intranet content is then migrated into this new structure.

There are a few weak points in this approach…

[CM Briefing 2006-14, read the full article]