Site Design Approaches
| Internet | Intranet |
| • Curiosity oriented | • Goal oriented |
| • Used to market and sell a product
or service | • Used to manage and publish high
volumes of structured content |
| • Requires a high “wow factor” to
capture attention | • Usability and clarity are preferred
over flashiness |
| • Designed to maximize users’
contact with site | • Designed to allow quick retrieval
of content |
| • Must be conducive to casual surfing
and exploration | • Always available for reference: “Find it
and forget it” |
Intranet presentation and
layout tips:
1. Keep it clean. The design
must be simple and intuitive,
focusing on usability rather
than glitz.
2. Intranets don’t need splash
screens. The only time splash
screens are acceptable in
intranets is for user login or
in multilingual companies for
language selection.
3. Avoid designing purely
Flash-based sites; they’re not
right for most intranet applications.
In order for them to
work, all content providers
would have to be familiar with,
and have the tools for, Flash
development—highly unlikely.
Some intranets, however, can
benefit from sections with
Flash content—where Flash
contributes to usability.
4. Avoid the use of “floating”
page designs. The empty borders
surrounding them will eat
up valuable screen real estate.
5. Minimize the use of animation.
Moving objects on the
screen have a tendency to
draw users’ attention away
from what they’re reading.
6. For the sake of users who
do lengthy intranet research,
steer clear of opposing highcontrast
colors—white text on
a black background or yellow
text on blue background—that
cause edge shimmering and
color aftereffect.
7. Always offer clean, printable
versions of intranet
content for portability (when
users work from home or are
traveling, in meetings, etc.).
