P.G. Daly's Intranet Talk:
Giving the Intranet a Facelift

After much ado and a very long wait, I recently gave my Intranet a new look and feel. Originally, the project was supposed to encompass a number of process and procedural changes as well, but these got sidelined in light of a number of political and resource roadblocks. Nevertheless, I decided there were enough improvements to be had with just updating the look, feel, and navigation of the Intranet, so I forged ahead.

The process I went through to accomplish this included reviewing comments I received from user surveys, evaluating the current home page look and feel, and soliciting the help of a relatively new content author. Much of the feedback from the surveys in terms of look and feel were focused on making content easier to find, reducing the number of clicks to get there, and updating to a more "modern" look. Evaluating the current state of affairs was a little more involved. The current home page had started to take on that patchwork quilt look where new things that had no "official" home based on the original design just got patched in and added to a long list of items under a "What's New" section that really had very little in the way of "new stuff"; it was more of a home for homeless content. Also, the current front page had a few too many layers for users who knew where they wanted to go. In some instances, a user might have to click as many as 3-4 times before getting to the content she wanted. Last but certainly not least were the cluttered look of the home page and a hopelessly out of date, and therefore useless Site Map.

With these key issues in mind, I set about the task of redesigning the home page, consolidating some files, and updating the Site Map. Being a overwhelmed with projects, and in many ways too intimately involved with the old pages to come up with something truly fresh, I enlisted the help of a coworker who, being new to the department and to building web pages, had the ability to see things in a new light and really get excited about the page in a way that those of us who have been doing it for years cannot always do. The result - a far better product than I alone could have produced. Sometimes two heads truly are better than one.

What does it look like you ask? (See picture) Essentially, it has a white background with a colored gradient as a left sidebar/navigation bar, the Intranet logo at the top left, the parent company's "Intranet standard graphic" at the top right(read: it is required to be there, ugly and unhelpful though it may be), and a few small graphical icons to break up different sections. It is intentionally not very graphic intensive since the remote sales force is one of the primary audiences for the Intranet and nobody wants to wait painfully long at the far end of a dial-up connection for stuff to download. Along the navigation bar on the left are a series of list boxes that automatically link to the page for the topic a user selects. The list boxes are broken down into 5 categories: business divisions, common departments, forums, resources, and directories/publications. In addition, the navigation bar has direct links to the search page, the Site Map, and the company's Internet site. In the center or main body of the page are 5 types of news: what's new on the Intranet, press releases, internal announcements, organizational announcements, and competitor news/parent company news. These 5 news areas each have 1 or 2 bullet list items with the latest and greatest headlines that link to the full news story. Archives of all the news categories are available just a click a way as well.

Over a month after its debut, the new look and feel has been very well received. It has allowed me to improve navigation by reducing the number of clicks, clean up visible clutter on the home page, create a truly usable Site Map, and eliminate some nearly-orphaned pages behind the scenes that served no purpose other than an additional layer to navigate through and maintain.

Even though I wasn't able to tackle some of the bigger process issues at the same time, freshening up the look and feel has breathed some new life into the home page and the site in general. Beyond the house cleaning, as an added bonus, it has spurred some of the businesses to make plans to revamp their sites as well. In fact, several projects are already in the works to create new sites and/or a new look for several departments' sites. Don't underestimate the need to "keep up with the Joneses" to aid you in your task to have your Intranet progress!

As always, comments and feedback are appreciated. You can e-mail me at paulag@enter.net.

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The Author

P.G. Daly is Webmaster for the intranet of a large durable goods manufacturing company. In addition, P.G. writes for several online publications and does freelance web design and consulting. P.G. welcomes your feedback at paulag@enter.net . >