What it means
A growing company keeps policies in email attachments and old folders, so employees cannot tell which version is current. An intranet can give controlled information and links a clear home, and for owners it is a managed doorway to trusted internal information whose value comes from good ownership, permissions and findability, not the number of pages.
Start with user needs by asking what people repeatedly search for or ask colleagues to send, and build around those tasks rather than a decorative home page. Microsoft SharePoint intranet overview describes hubs for communication, knowledge and employee experiences, but it is an example of one platform, not the definition of every intranet.
Microsoft sharing and permissions guidance shows that access can be set at different scopes, so a company must plan rights rather than assume an internal login makes all information safe to share. A public staff directory is different from salary records or disciplinary notes, so use role-based permissions and test with actual user types.
Organise by task and audience so a worker can find leave policy, IT help and forms without knowing the department that owns them; a logical structure beats a long list of team names. Choose authoritative owners, such as HR for employment policies, finance for expense rules and safety teams for site instructions, because a page without an owner can become stale.
Mark current versions with dates, review owners and superseded status, so that search never ranks an outdated copy above the controlled document. Include contractors and guests only deliberately, since they may need certain guides but not the full staff site, and access must reflect contracts and privacy obligations.
Review permissions after role changes, because a worker who moves teams may retain old access if nobody checks, and offboarding should remove access on time. Make search useful with clear titles, keywords and short summaries, and avoid duplicate files with similar names that make search less reliable.
Provide a feedback route so that someone who finds a broken link or wrong policy knows whom to tell, with an owner and a response time for corrections. Design for mobile and accessibility, because field and shift workers may use phones, shared terminals or assistive technology and a desktop-only portal can exclude them.
Connect workflows so that a form leads to a real process with status and ownership, since a button that merely opens another confusing inbox does not simplify work. Avoid dumping every document: archive material, restrict sensitive records and surface the few things people need now, because more content can reduce clarity.
Plan news separately from reference pages, since an announcement expires while a policy may remain current for years, and let new departments and locations fit the structure without separate, inconsistent mini-sites. Measure use with care, because page views can show interest or confusion, so ask whether people completed tasks, set a publishing process where editors check facts, links, access and style, train staff briefly, back up important content, and link from chat to the current page rather than treating conversation tools as a replacement.
In practice
Real-world examples.
Example
A worker finds the current travel policy through a searchable landing page. The page shows its review date and owner, so she can trust it without emailing HR to check.
Example
A contractor sees a project guide but not restricted HR records. The access was set by role, and the project manager tested it by logging in with a contractor test account before launch.
Example
A policy owner replaces an old version and marks it superseded. Search now ranks the new document first, and the old one stays archived for reference with a clear label.
Formula
Calculation
Find rate = Successful information-finding attempts / Attempts observed x 100
Worked example. In a usability test, 40 attempts to locate a needed item are observed and 36 succeed.
- Find rate = 36 / 40 x 100 = 90%.
- The 4 failed attempts show where titles, search or structure need work, which says more about usability than the number of pages published.
Quality needs task context. If the 4 failures all involve the expense policy, that single page is the priority fix, even though the overall rate looks healthy.Case study
Seen in the real world.
This entirely fictional example follows Maple Group. Several versions of its expense policy circulated by email. Finance placed one controlled version on the intranet, redirected old links and assigned a review owner. The case illustrates version control, not proof that every employee found or understood the policy.
Maple Group then ran a short find test with a sample of staff and recorded how many located the policy within a minute. The failures pointed to unclear page titles rather than missing content, so the team renamed the pages and added a short summary at the top. It repeated the test a month later to see whether the changes helped, and it kept the results as a management check instead of a claim of success.
Watch out
Common mistakes.
- Assuming internal access means all staff can see all files.
- Publishing policies with no owner or review date.
- Counting page views as proof employees found and understood the right answer.
Questions
People also ask.
What is an intranet?
An access-controlled digital hub for internal information and services.
What is on it?
It may hold policies, news, guides, directories, forms and tool links.
Who can access it?
Staff and other approved users can access the areas their permissions allow.
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