The winds of change are blowing for intranets. Every intranet survey run in the wider community has shown that 50% of intranet teams are planning (or hoping) to redesign their sites.

With any redesign comes the opportunity for a fresh new look and feel. Drawing their inspiration from the best of public-facing sites, intranets are shrugging off their dated appearance and joining the modern age.

These design improvements matter. As discussed in the earlier article Should the intranet look sexy?, intranet sites don’t have a marketing role, but they do need to have a professional and engaging appearance.

Fundamentally, this is about trust. Staff need have confidence that the intranet will provide them with accurate and up-to-date information. An old, ugly and dated site sends the opposite message, that the intranet is uncared for and under-resourced.

There is an also an emotional element to intranet design. Intranets should reflect the cultures of the organisations they serve, and can also help to drive cultural change.

At a basic level, intranets need to have a clear brand and identity of their own, distinct from the public-facing site and providing continuity as the organisation evolves and restructures.

As intranets are hidden within organisations, it is hard to know what good intranet design looks like. This article shares a few examples from across the globe, not as definitive ‘right’ designs, but as inspiration for other teams to follow. While very different in their design approaches, all the showcased intranets have elements to learn from.

[July KM Column, read the full article]