Information Architecture for intranets – the elements

This article is based on the modern experience SharePoint.

In the first article in this series, (Information Architecture for intranets – the foundations) we looked at the pre-requisites that need some consideration; understanding users, content and the scope of IA. This article looks at the various elements that will be included in establishing an Information Architecture.

The modern world is flat

In the modern SharePoint experience, sub-sites are not recommended. In the new “flat” world of modern SharePoint, plan to create one site for each discrete topic or unit of work. This will allow you to easily distribute the management and accountability for each content collection and support your ability to move sites around in your navigational architecture without breaking links. Moreover, when a topic is no longer needed, you can easily archive or delete a site with minimal impact.

In the new flat world, you have several ways to connect sites and content to each other as part of your information architecture toolkit:

• Use “roll up” web parts such as News or Highlighted Content to dynamically surface content dynamically
• Use inline hyperlinks to provide additional detail about a topic to provide more information to your reader
• Add explicit links to related sites in your site navigation and global navigation
• Connect families of related sites using hubs.

Site structure

Defining the sites that will make up your intranet will depend on a number of factors:

Management style. Intranet content may be centrally managed by a high-level management team, typically the internal communications team, or devolved to content owners. Centrally managing the entire intranet is only practical for smaller organisations. Larger organisations depend on the owners of content to manage their own content. This might be a combination of page and document-based content or limited based on the organisation’s management preferences. The volume of content and the complexity of permissions will determine whether a operational area will require a site of its own, or whether a few pages hosted at the root of the intranet may be sufficient (managed by central intranet managers). There would be little point in creating a site where there is little content, and the site is effectively managed on behalf of the content owners anyway.

Permissions. Most sites will have permissions aligned to the owners of the site contents. Often a high-level management team, such as internal communications, may have a further level of permissions such as Approver if a content approval workflow is in place. Permissions are best managed at a site level as opposed to a library, folder or document level. This alone starts to define the sites that may be required in your intranet.

News publishing by function. News may be one area you wish operational areas to manage themselves and be able to surface just their news post on their site landing page. For example, HR may wish to publish new starters and onboarding posts, ICT may wish to publish systems updates etc. Some of this content may rollup to the home site, other content may be exclusive to the HR / ICT sites only.

Connected intranet. Some intranets are linked to Team sites or the EDRM environment where document content originates. These intranets tend to be more complex and involve a detailed information architecture that will enable the management of both private and published content using permissions. Where Private Team sites are used to manage documents, page content will need to be managed independently in a site that has visitor permissions; typically a communications site.

Server capacity and efficiency. Not generally an issue with intranets when used as a publishing platform. However, server performance should be considered where large volumes of content may be hosted.

Navigation

The most effective intranets help visitors find what they need quickly via navigation so that they can use the information they find to make decisions, learn about what is going on, access the tools they need, or engage with colleagues to help solve a problem. Navigation for SharePoint intranets in the modern experience includes four principle navigation methods.

Global Navigation - Assuming a Home Site is deployed, global navigation gives a consistent navigation experience across all SharePoint sites within a tenancy. Global navigation can also be pinned as an app in Teams where Viva Connection/SharePoint App Bar is deployed.

Hub Site Navigation – consistent navigation for all sites associated with a hub. Hub navigation may be replaced with Global Navigation where a Home Site is operating as the hub site for the intranet.

Site Navigation – Each site has its own, contextual navigation (quick launch).

On-page Navigation – This type of navigation may include, quick links, hyperlinks, buttons and dynamic content surfacing (Highlighted Content web part). On-page navigation is typically topic specific and helps users drill down to further or related content.

SharePoint site templates

SharePoint includes a number of site templates.

Home Site. A home site is a communication site that is created as the default landing page for all users in your intranet. It brings together news, events, embedded video and conversations, and other resources to deliver an engaging experience that reflects your organization's voice, priorities, and brand. Only one Home site can be established on a tenant. Global navigation is managed at the Home Site.

Hub site. A Hub site is designated as the ‘head’ of a family of related sites. Sites that are associated to the hub inherit the hub navigation (or global navigation), branding, and other elements. The Hub site is typically based on the Communications site template.

Each site can belong to only one hub at a time. Changing the association of a site to another hub is very easily achieved and does not break links used elsewhere. Using hubs is far more flexible and adaptive to the changing needs of your organization. A single Hub site is often used for intranets, although an intranet IA may include many hub sites for very large organisations.

Communication Site. A communication site is one of the core site templates used in SharePoint. A communication site is a standalone site, it is not connected to an Office 365 Group. It is ideal for intranet use, sharing information such as news, reports, campaigns etc.

Team site. The SharePoint Team site is Group connected and as such offers team members in-depth collaboration tools and connectivity. Team sites may be connected to Microsoft Teams (app) where further chat and collaboration takes place between team members. Team sites can be part of a corporate intranet but are more typically used as private sites and content sites within the EDRM environment.

Content

Content may be the single biggest area to tackle when designing your information architecture. To step back a little, an intranet may be a ringfenced publishing environment for final version documents, or it may be considered as the back-office environment which includes the management of both published and working document versions. This distinction immediately adds a significant dimension into what the IA might look like.

The following paragraphs tackle a few themes within the area of content:

Pages vs Documents. Traditional intranets are quite page heavy. This was for a number of reasons: accessibility of HTML content was considered better, document content requires an application to open, many intranet CMS applications where/are not good at managing documents.

The Microsoft 365 intranet based on SharePoint is quite different. Document-based content is easier to manage and the applications to access content are built in. SharePoint started life as a document management technology. The SharePoint online intranet offers editors and content authors sophisticated document management control, generally considered better and more flexible than page-based content.

Content types. One of the controls we have at our disposal is the use of Content Types. Content Types are used to define the types of metadata (site columns) required to control and define content. Where site columns are created as managed properties, we can use search to dynamically surface content on intranet pages based on metadata. For example, content tagged with the term ‘Policy’ can be surfaced on a page irrespective of where the original is hosted, together with other policy documents hosted throughout the intranet.

Libraries and lists. SharePoint is based on sites which are controlled by permissions. Of theses sites a number of lists and libraries might be deployed to manage content. The new SharePoint list and library interface is another example where Microsoft excel in managing content. Content can be managed by filters, and views. Views can be created to capture pre-defined filters and configuration so content can be accessed and ‘sliced and diced’ based on the users’ requirements. Multiple libraries can be created based on the information contained within the library and the management requirements of that information.

Content Classification. There are two separate areas when we consider content classification. One is the use of ‘Classification Labels and Policies’ which are to do with the retention, review and depreciation of content. The other is to do with the ‘terms’ or ‘metadata’ added to content to help understand the nature of the content. Terms are managed within the Term Store (taxonomy) or corporate classification schema.

Conclusion

All of the above is considered when designing the information architecture for an intranet or document management environment. Every customer has different requirements and different challenges to overcome. The design and configuration of the information architecture is at the root of a good intranet, and therefore must be carefully designed with best-practice and scalability in mind. We have many years’ experience designing intranets starting with a sound information architecture for customer large and small. We would be delighted to assist you with your IA.