Do Intranet Looks Matter?
Does the Look of your Intranet matter?
Yes! The way your Intranet looks plays a big role in its effectiveness. Imagine going to your favorite website and all you saw was plain text, and some goofy clip art images. Would you take that site seriously? I don’t think I would either. Then how do you think your employees would see your Intranet if it looked similar? Graphics can change how employees perceive not only the Intranet, but also the organization as a whole. Let’s explore how a good looking Intranet can be one of the more important aspects of successful organizational communication.
Conveys Mood and Attitude of the Organization
You can use your Intranet’s graphics and colors to reflect how you want your organization’s atmosphere to be. If you are going for an ultra-professional atmosphere at work, you can add graphics that reflect that: sterile colors, pictures of people in suits and ties, and a nice clean layout. If you want a fun uplifting environment, you can have warmer colors, pictures of people having fun at work, and some graphical and fun buttons for important links or pages on the Intranet. You know the cliché…A picture is worth a thousand words. Having good graphics on your hospital’s Intranet can also get across information to your users better.
Helps with Communication
During my training as a teacher, it was drilled in me that everyone learns differently. Some people learn better by just reading plain text, while others might learn better from visual communication like images or graphics. Also keep in mind to choose your images wisely—you don’t want them to be distracting or overpowering on a page.
Graphics can add a lot to a drab Intranet. They can keep staff wanting to come back to engage with the site. If you don’t have someone graphically inclined at your organization, then hiring outside help might be worth it. They can consult and give you tips to make sure things don’t get out of hand with images and graphics. When choosing a designer, you want to make sure that you find someone that is in tune with the message that you want to send to your staff. Make sure that you clearly layout what you want in terms of colors and over all look and feel. You might go through several iterations in the process, but in the end it will all be worth it to make your Intranet pretty again.