Microsoft SharePoint is a platform for creating intranets. It includes many helpful features such as: search, CMS, news, employee directory, personalization, team collaboration spaces, blogs, wikis, and news.

Some Microsoft SharePoint intranets are nothing short of marvelous — rich with features that support the business and engage employees, anchored by predictable navigation, supported by a smart search, and with page layouts that make employees want to scan all the content. But it was not always this way.

In 2001 when we conducted our first independent UX research study of intranets and wrote our first Intranet Design Annual, SharePoint suffered new-to-the-world product challenges: it required explaining to the “intranet portal” market (IT experts, HR teams, corporate communications departments, procurement, and not least of all, CTO’s) what a global intranet was and why it was important. Once that hurdle was cleared, the product suffered the usual new enterprise-software issues. SharePoint had competition such as Plumtree, Epicentric, and Oracle. Plumtree and Epicentric are out of business. The other two (SharePoint and Oracle) survived, buoyed by the giant, warm bankrolls of their respective large companies. Although SharePoint lived, it seemed to be mother Microsoft’s neglected baby for a long time. Customers were, well, lost back then. Many intranets based on the fledgling SharePoint were designed by well-meaning IT folks who had no idea what they were getting themselves into. (I am using the word “designed” very generously, as they were usually installed and set up just enough to barely function, then set off to fend for themselves.)

But times have changed. Love it or not, SharePoint has forged a strong foothold on the intranet market, and is unlikely to walk or slip out of it any time soon. Evidence includes:

Strong market adoption: The Radicati Group’s 2015 “Microsoft SharePoint Market Analysis, 2015-2019” report asserts that “Microsoft SharePoint continues to see strong market adoption across all verticals, and is projected to grow at an annual average growth rate of 20% over the next four years.”
Our first Intranet Design Annual winner using SharePoint, METRO Group, didn’t show up until 2006, and was the only SharePointwinner that year. Conversely, 9 out of 10 2016 winners use SharePoint.
Large development community: There are nearly 10K members of the SharePoint community at the time of this article’s writing.
Design agencies: A myriad of design agencies specifically advertise expertise in SharePoint UX design and development. One directory,TopSharePoint.com, alone lists more than 5K of them.
Companion-product market: Companies invest in and release third-party solutions (such as Unily) that sit on top of SharePoint (and sometimes Office 365 too) and provide a head start to an intranet design.
Great SharePoint Design

Successful intranet teams use SharePoint’s out-of-box offerings as an edge, not an end, and stretch and massage the technology to fit their organization’s mold. For example, NAV CANADA, produced one of the SharePoint-based winning intranets showcased in our Intranet Design Annual 2016. This intranet’s homepage alone includes many helpful attributes, including:

Visually-pleasing, on-brand design
Simple navigation that is easy to identify due to its location and the use of background color
Elevated visibility of commonly used applications, pages, and sites
A carousel with promotions, announcements and other special interest stories
A wide, fat footer at the bottom that repeats the global navigation topics and lists the same links that appear in the megamenu
Many helpful content-related features, such as project highlights to make employees aware of core projects and goals; and employee highlights, dedicated to promoting initiatives or events that are directly related to employee life at NAV CANADA
visit the website for more!

www.web24studio.com/design-a-brilliant-sharepoint-intranet/

Contact: Bizcomtec Solutions

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