Learn how to create a customized intranet with limited time and resources.

A well-designed intranet should help employees find information, complete tasks, and stay connected without adding friction to their day. But because every organization has different teams, workflows, and communication needs, improving intranet user experience design often requires more than a standard out-of-the-box setup.

This article explains how to improve intranet UX through thoughtful customization, user research, personalization, and ongoing evaluation, even when design and development resources are limited.

Key Takeaways

• Intranet user experience design should be shaped around employee needs, not just available platform features.
• Personalization helps make intranets more relevant for different roles, teams, and departments.
• Customizations should be tied to clear business goals, especially during the first phase of an intranet project.
• User research does not need to be extensive to be useful, but it should inform major design decisions.
• Intranet UX should be evaluated and improved over time as employee needs and business priorities change.

What is Intranet User Experience Design?

Intranet user experience design is the process of structuring an internal digital workspace so employees can easily find information, complete tasks, and stay connected to the organization. It includes everything from navigation and search functionality to content organization, personalization, accessibility, and the way common workflows are supported.

Effective intranet UX design should make the platform feel useful and intuitive for the people who rely on it every day. When employees can quickly access the tools, resources, and updates they need, the intranet becomes more than a static information hub. It becomes a more practical part of how work gets done.

Why Intranet User Experience Design Matters

One of the primary goals for corporate intranets is to streamline employees’ daily tasks with a modern user experience that makes work easier. This usually requires some level of customization, because no two companies have the same user needs.

In fact, Kara Pernice from the Nielsen Norman Group writes:

“If there is one conclusion from the thousands of intranets we’ve analyzed over the years, it’s that an unmodified turnkey user experience will be substandard, no matter where it’s used. Every company is special, and therefore no one intranet design will be effective everywhere right out of the box. You can, however, look for software with an initial design that is a good basis for customization without the need to change everything.”

Customizations can increase complexity and impact supportability for most platforms, but when executed well the payoff in employee satisfaction can be huge. However, many companies have limited design and development resources for their intranets, leaving them to make tough calls about when an out-of-the-box feature is “good enough” and when a customization is worth its cost.

I recently had the chance to sit down with Patrick Pentz, one of the UX designers at Liferay, and ask how intranet project managers can design better user experiences, even with limited resources. Here are his top five takeaways for designing a customized intranet, including advice on how to set priorities and what kind of research goes into planning an intranet.

Five Intranet UX Best Practices to to Customize and Improve the Experience

A customized intranet user experience helps employees work more efficiently by making the information, tools, and workflows they need easier to access. While every organization’s intranet should reflect its own structure and priorities, the most effective UX improvements are usually rooted in the same fundamentals: understanding employee needs, setting clear goals, and refining the experience over time.

1. Personalization is a must — there’s no one design that can satisfy everyone.

In 2018, a lot of companies think one site, one solution can work for everyone in their company. But today’s users, especially millennials, are used to technology that adapts to them. There’s really not one page or design you can make that will satisfy everyone, so personalization and customization are necessary to match the kinds of experiences your employees see when they’re on sites like Netflix and Amazon.

This is especially true if you’re working at the enterprise level. You’ll always end up customizing to some extent, because different companies have different needs.

The intranet platform you choose makes a big difference in how much customization you can afford because having the right out-of-the-box features can significantly speed up initial development. One of the mistakes most companies make is not consulting their design team while they’re evaluating software. If UX designers are able to do user research ahead of time, they can identify the most important user needs and make sure those are a factor when choosing the intranet platform.

2. Make sure customizations are tied to goals by focusing on Phase 1.

Before you start building anything, get your stakeholders in a room and clearly define the problem you’re trying to solve with Phase 1 of the project. That problem might be made up of a bunch of smaller problems, but I try to find one main thing to focus on. When you ask stakeholders to think of goals in terms of “Phase 1,” it helps them focus on their top priorities instead of trying to implement every nice-to-have feature they’ve imagined for the intranet.

After that, figure out everyone’s vision and objective. Each stakeholder will have a slightly different way of thinking about the project and a different motivation for getting it done. Make sure you hear them all out and then consolidate it into one vision.

Then you can set success criteria for Phase 1 — what does success look like for the group, based on the problem we’re trying to solve and the vision we identified? In other words, what features and customizations will you need to implement for Phase 1 to be a success? The project shouldn’t move forward until everyone agrees on that.

Clearly defining and documenting these goals at the start is important. New ideas will come up during the project, and it’s important to have success criteria to weigh them against so you can make tough calls about whether to include the idea now or wait until a later phase.

I always try to let the group know that I’m not the only designer in the room. We’re all designing this project together, and they’re acting as designers by bringing their insights and ideas to the table, which I’ll gather and transcribe into a design. That makes them feel more involved, because they see that their expertise matters for the project’s success.

3. If you don’t have a dedicated UX design team, hire external expertise.

If your company doesn’t have the resources to have a dedicated UX team for your intranet, I definitely recommend that you hire some external expertise, at least some consultancy to push you in the right direction. On your own, if you’re doing this for the first time, you’ll probably make mistakes that end up costing more than if you had hired a consultant. Experts who do this full-time have likely made similar mistakes in the past and can give solid advice on the right approach to take for your project.

If you really can’t hire anyone, there’s some basic research you can do on your own to give you a strong start. For most of my projects, I start by going online and running searches like “best UX practices for intranets.” I look at relevant articles from credible sources and try to find commonalities in what people are saying. Then I consolidate these into guidelines so that, when Phase 1 of the project is done, we can look back and say, “Yes, our design hit all these check marks.”

4. Invest in user research even if you’re short on time.

Ideally, your team will have the time and resources to interview actual users and flesh out robust user personas before designing your intranet. However, the reality is that your project will have a deadline, and if you’re working with a fast implementation you may need to limit the amount of user research you do. Even so, there are many user research methods that can give you solid research without a huge investment of time.

For instance, you can create “proto-personas” by talking to your stakeholders about their insights and assumptions for their users. This helps you identify how many personas you have and cuts back on the initial exploratory research you might do. From there, you can conduct targeted user interviews and refine the personas based on those insights.

There are also basic demographics you can look at to round out personas, things like age and gender that help set user expectations for your intranet.

If you’re really short on time, you can streamline this by interviewing people who often work with your end users. For example, when we were refining our customer portal at Liferay, I interviewed internal employees that represented the “types” of customers we have and consolidated those insights into the personas we used for the project. It’s not perfect, because our employees aren’t the same as our ideal end users, but it’s still pretty strong because it’s backed on research.

One of the great things about designing an intranet is that communication with the end user is much easier. Project managers can talk directly with employees to understand needs and pain points, and that is already a great start to designing a useful intranet.

5. UX design is never finished, so plan on an evaluation process from the start.

One thing to remember about UX design is that it’s never finished. When I worked as a graphic designer, it was easy to say a project was finished and to close the door on it. UX design is always changing and always refining. It’s up to the stakeholders to listen to their users and decide whether those refinements will translate into significant increases in productivity for their employees.

There are different ways you can evaluate Phase 1 to see what can be improved. You can use tools like Google Analytics or Hotjar, you can conduct user testing, you can send out a survey. You can talk to your users and hear what mistakes you’ve made, then repeat your process of researching ways to fix pain points.

Honestly, with intranets, most companies won’t start a Phase 2 unless there’s a concrete need for it. “Good enough” comes at a lower threshold than for customer-facing sites because the business value of an intranet is indirect. Companies don’t want to invest in big improvements unless there’s a clear problem that needs to be fixed.

How Better Intranet UX Supports Stronger Customer Experiences

Like everything these days, companies will get better ROI out of their intranet if they customize it for their employees’ needs. Improving the employee experience through intranets is ultimately about delivering better customer experiences. As you make internal business processes faster or more accurate, you improve your company’s ability to consistently deliver experiences that customers love.

The trick, especially for enterprises, is knowing when it’s worth investing. Starting with clear goals and leveraging internal or external UX expertise will ensure you’re spending your resources in areas that will reap long-term benefits.

More Consistent Internal Communication

Employees spend up to 20% of their time searching for internal information each week. Recapture this time with a modern, user-friendly intranet that brings tools and systems under one umbrella customized for your brand, with a host of out-of-the-box tools designed to create open, efficient communication in large, complex companies.

Faster Access to Customer Information

Customer-facing teams need quick access to accurate information to deliver the right experience. A well-designed intranet can bring key resources, product updates, support materials, and company knowledge into one searchable, easy-to-navigate place. This helps employees spend less time hunting for answers and more time responding to customer needs with confidence.

Better Employee Support for Better Customer Support

Employees are better equipped to serve customers when their own digital experience is simple, connected, and useful. An intranet that supports daily workflows, reduces friction, and gives teams the tools they need can help improve response times, reduce internal confusion, and create a more consistent customer experience across every interaction.

Common Intranet UX Design Mistakes to Avoid

Improving intranet UX is not just about adding new features or redesigning the interface. The most effective intranet experiences are built around how employees actually search for information, complete tasks, and collaborate across the organization. Avoiding a few common mistakes can help teams create an intranet that feels more useful from the start and easier to improve over time.

• Treating the intranet as a static document repository: An intranet should do more than store policies, forms, and internal announcements. It should help employees complete everyday tasks, access relevant tools, and stay connected to the information that supports their work.
• Customizing without a clear goal: Customization can improve the employee experience, but only when it is tied to a specific business or user need. Adding too many custom features too early can make the intranet harder to manage and more difficult for employees to use.
• Ignoring employee feedback after launch: Employee needs can change as teams grow, processes evolve, and new tools are introduced. Regular feedback helps organizations identify what is working, where employees are struggling, and which improvements should be prioritized next.
• Building navigation around internal structures instead of user needs: Employees may not think about information the same way leadership or departments organize it. Navigation should make sense to the people using the intranet every day, which often means grouping content around tasks, topics, and common questions.
• Letting content become outdated: Even strong intranet UX can suffer if employees cannot trust the information they find. Clear ownership, content review processes, and ongoing governance help keep pages accurate, searchable, and useful.

Build Better Intranet Experiences with Liferay

Improving intranet user experience design is easier when teams have a flexible platform for delivering the right information, tools, and workflows to the right employees. Liferay DXP helps organizations build modern intranets that can be personalized around employee roles, connected to existing systems, and managed without relying on IT for every update.

With Liferay, organizations can support stronger intranet experiences through capabilities such as:

• Role-based access and personalization: Create custom employee roles, assign permissions, and tailor pages, tools, news, and resources based on attributes like role, location, and behavior.
• Easier knowledge sharing: Help employees find what they need with built-in asset management, search, knowledge bases, FAQs, forums, and wiki pages.
• Personalized search experiences: Surface more relevant search results based on employee profiles, preferences, and past interactions with the platform.
• Integrations with existing tools: Connect the intranet to systems employees already use, including tools like Salesforce, Google Drive, and Microsoft 365, as well as custom systems through APIs and integration capabilities.
• Simpler content management: Give teams the ability to create, edit, and manage intranet pages and content more easily, helping keep information accurate and up to date.
• Low-code and no-code workflow support: Build forms, workflows, and applications that help streamline internal processes without requiring extensive development resources.

Create an Intranet Experience Employees Actually Want to Use

A strong intranet user experience helps employees find information faster, complete work with less friction, and stay connected to the people and resources they need. But effective intranet UX is not a one-time design project. It requires a clear understanding of employee needs, thoughtful customization, and ongoing improvements based on how people actually use the platform.

With the right approach and the right technology, organizations can build intranet experiences that support daily work while also strengthening collaboration, productivity, and customer-facing outcomes.

See what a Liferay intranet can do

Frequently-Asked Questions

What makes a good intranet user experience?

A good intranet user experience is intuitive, searchable, personalized, and easy to maintain. Employees should be able to quickly find relevant information, access the tools they use most, and complete common tasks without unnecessary friction.

Why is intranet UX important?

Intranet UX is important because it affects how easily employees can access information, collaborate, and complete daily work. A better intranet experience can improve productivity, reduce frustration, and help teams stay aligned across the organization.

What should be included in an intranet UX strategy?

An intranet UX strategy should include user research, clear business goals, content governance, personalization plans, search and navigation improvements, accessibility considerations, and a process for evaluating performance over time.