#SampleDesigns

#Inspiration

SharePoint Intranet
DESIGN STUDIO
Inspiration and ideas for a SharePoint Intranet

Experts in Intranet Design & Development

 The importance and value of
a well-designed intranet

How do you build a great intranet? At Kiefer we’ve been building intranets in
SharePoint for over a decade. In that time, we’ve developed some best practices
for creating a truly amazing intranet. We know that great intranets are designed
with the user in mind and that they help employees do their jobs better. Great
intranet sites are well-designed, easy to navigate and seamlessly blend usability
and strong design.

A great intranet is an organizational hub where users go for the most important
information, to connect with organizational expertise and to collaborate across
the organization. But even the most well-engineered things aren’t much good
if they aren’t inviting. The experience of your intranet is as important as its
engineering. To borrow a phrase, build it well and they will come.

Think of an airport terminal. Some are beautiful to look at, easy to navigate and
passengers can get where they need to go quickly and confidently. Others,
though, are aesthetically unpleasant, cumbersome and confusing. While Kiefer
isn’t in the airport terminal building business, we are in the business of building
elegant, navigable and relevant intranets. Like a well-designed airport terminal,
a user shouldn’t have to think too much about an intranet while they’re using it.
And like a poorly designed airport terminal, users will do just about anything to
avoid it.

About this Guide

The Kiefer Modern Workplace Practice has helped organizations both large
and small in designing and deploying dynamic intranet experiences. This guide
showcases some of the design potential that can be coaxed from SharePoint. Let
the designs presented here inspire you!

This guide focuses on the visual-design aspects of an intranet, which the Kiefer
team is well equipped to help you with. Our team can also help you in planning,
information architecture, design, deployment, governance, and user adoption.
For now, though, spend a few moments considering these designs and you’ll
start to see just how expansive the possibilities are.

www.kieferconsulting.com 1
 Leveraging Microsoft
look book templates

Kiefer consultants are pioneers when it comes to intranet

development. Our team has pushed SharePoint to its limits, built
custom web parts and designed elegant intranet experiences by
leveraging SharePoint and custom code.

Microsoft recognizes the power of the SharePoint platform, the

applications and the use cases. They built it, after all. As a platform
for an organization’s intranet, SharePoint has proven itself to be an
excellent choice. However, many users and organizations aim to
deploy an intranet quickly and with minimal complexity. Custom
code and starting from “zero” are often non-starters. Microsoft’s
Modern user interface in SharePoint Online presents organizations
with a no code/low-code platform for an intranet. Furthermore,
Microsoft has introduced look book templates and pre-built web
parts to simplify and accelerate the build of an organization’s
intranet.

The Look Book Templates

Microsoft has released 18 look book site templates that can
be used to create a SharePoint Online intranet. Look book
templates come with pre-configured pages loaded with webparts,
customized layouts, and visual design. Once a template is
deployed to your site you can customize the look even further by
swapping out colors to match your corporate branding, deleting
and adding webparts, and moving webparts around on the pages.

Using a template from the SharePoint look book does NOT limit
your ability to customize SharePoint, but rather gives you a solid
starting point for the visual design and layout of your intranet. The
SharePoint look book templates are only available as Modern site
templates.

Look book templates are also a great way to quickly show end
users what is possible in the Modern UI if you are considering
a change from Classic to Modern. Perhaps you’ve soured on
Modern because you’ve heard there are limited design options.
While true, the examples in this guidebook should help put your
mind at ease if you’ve been worried that Modern intranet wouldn’t
look as good as a highly customized Classic intranet. As you’ve
seen, some amazing things are possible and Kiefer can help you
achieve them.

www.kieferconsulting.com 2
 SharePoint Online Web Parts
Pre-built and ready to use

When you add a modern page to a site, you add and customize web parts, which are the building blocks of your
page. You can add text, images, files, video, dynamic content and more.

Web Part Functionality

Embedded Embed content from other sites
Bing Map Displays a location on a map.
Document Library/List Adds a document library or list.
Events Displays upcoming events.
News Displays recent news.
Quick Chart Shows data in a bar or pie chart.
Quick Links Allows you to pin items to your page for quick and easy access.
Site Activity Shows recent site activity.
People Shows the information for people in your organization.
Image Inserts an image into your page.
Hero Display up to five central items with images, text, and links.
File Viewer Inserts a file into your page.
People Shows people’s profiles on your page.
Embed Display content on your site from any source that allows embedding (like YouTube).
Planner Adds your team’s tasks and assignments on a page using Microsoft Planner.
Power Apps Business apps that run in a browser or on a phone or tablet.
Office 365 Video Display a video that is managed in the Office 365 Video portal on your site.
Power BI Embed interactive Power BI reports in SharePoint Online pages.
Microsoft Forms Add a form or form results to your SharePoint Online page.
Image Gallery Share collections of pictures on a page.
Spacer The Spacer web part allows you to control vertical space on your page.
Highlighted Content Dynamically display content from a document library, a site, a site collection, or all sites.
Stream Adds a Microsoft Stream video to your site.
Group Calendar Display calendars from Office 365 groups.
Markdown The Markdown web part adds text to your page and format it using Markdown language.
World Clock The World clock web part shows the time in different locations around the world.
Divider The Divider web part inserts a line between other web parts to help break up your page.
Countdown Timer The Countdown timer web part displays a count down (or count up) to an event.
Code Snippet Displays code as text on your page for others to use or learn from.
Twitter Displays Twitter feed.
Yammer Integration with Yammer.

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 Design Template: News Site
Company & Organization News

This communication site uses multiple news sources and news layouts to highlight stories and
events from all levels of your company’s organizations.

Site Features:

• Configured as
organizational news
source
• Custom company theme
• Section background
• Compact header
• Header background
• Custom site logo
• Footer

Web Parts Used:

News
Tiles, Side-by-side, Hub
News, List, Carousel

Text
Custom RTE formatting

Quick Links
Filmstrip

Events
Filmstrip

Image

Button
Left alignment

Events
Compact

Hero
Layer, 1 Layer

Hero
Full width, 2 tiles

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 Design Template: The Landing
News, Resources, Personalized Content

This communication site is designed to be the place where your employees can find the news
and resources they need, plus personalized content tailored just for them.

Site Features:

• Custom company theme

• Vertical section
• Section background
• Mega Menu
• Compact header
• Header background
• Custom site logo
• Footer

Web Parts Used:

Quick Links
Filmstrip

Twitter

Yammer
Conversations

Image
Text over image

Countdown timer

Weather

World clock

Recent documents

Sites
Compact

Highlighted content
Grid

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 Design Template: Human Resources Hub
Employee-Focused News, Resources

Besides hub news, events, contacts and other resources, this example of a Human Resources
hub site features a custom PowerApp for time off requests from employees.

Site Features:

• Custom company theme

• Vertical section
• Section background
• Mega Menu
• Compact header
• Header background
• Custom site logo
• Footer

Web Parts Used:

Hub News
Carousel, Side-by-side, List

File viewer
Custom slide start

Events
Compact

Hero
Full width, one tile

Quick Links
Button, icon on left, outline,
center alignment, one line
title text

Quick Links
List, descriptions shown, icons
on left

PowerApps
Custom

People
Compact

www.kieferconsulting.com 6
 Design Template: Marketing Hub
Branded news, Resources,Events

SharePoint Hubs let you organize your intranet and drive consistent branding. For example, the
header, footer, and custom logo on this marketing hub site carry over to associated sites.

Site Features:

• Custom company theme

• Section background
• Hub level mega meun
• Compact header
• Header background
• Custom site logo
• Footer

Web Parts Used:

Countdown timer
Full width

News
Carousel, Hub News

Image
Text over image

Text
Custom RTE formatting

Button
Center aligned

Events
Filmstrip

Hero
Full width, 1 tile

www.kieferconsulting.com 7
 Design Template: Team Communication Site
Resources, Conversations, People

Here’s a team site that’s all about communicating and engaging with your teams through news,
resources, conversations, and people.

Site Features:

• Custom company theme

• Vertical section
• Section background
• Hub connected theme
• Custom site logo

Web Parts Used:

News
Side-by-side

Document library

Site activity

Yammer
Conversations

Twitter

Quick Links
Filmstrip

Quick Links
Button, no icon, fill color,
center aligned, two lines

World clock

People
Compact

www.kieferconsulting.com 8
 Design Template: Collaboration Team Site
Announcements, News, Collaboration
This template is an example of enabling collaboration at a team level. It has many parts
including news, files, and team calendar.

Site Features:

• Custom company theme

• Vertical section
• Section background
• Mega Menu
• Compact header
• Header background
• Custom site logo
• Footer

Web Parts Used:

News
Carousel, Side-by-side, List

Quick Links
Filmstrip

Twitter

Yammer
Conversations

Image
Text over image

Countdown timer

Weather

World clock

Recent documents

Sites
Compact

Highlighted content
Grid

www.kieferconsulting.com 9
 Design Template: Project Team
Planning, Progress, Tracking

Using Planner and PowerBI along with other project-related web parts, this team site is all
about the project -- from planning and progress, to tracking results.

Site Features:

• Custom company theme

• Vertical section
• Section background
• Compact header
• Header background
• Custom site logo

Web Parts Used:

Planner
Board display

Image Gallery
Grid, 4x3

File viewer

Document Library
Command bar off

PowerBI report
16:9 display, Navigation
Pane off

Countdown timer

Events
Compact

Group Calendar

Highlighted content
Most recent docs custom
filter

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 Getting
Started

Are look book templates

difficult to deploy?
Microsoft has made the deployment of look
book templates incredibly simple, but just
because it is simple it does not mean that
everyone can deploy them.

First, you must be a Global Administrator

to deploy look book templates, SharePoint
Administrator permissions are not enough!
This requirement alone will limit the users
that can deploy a look book template to
your Intranet. The next thing to remember is
that when you deploy a template it creates
a new Site Collection. Currently there is
not a way to deploy a look book template
to an existing Site Collection. This means
that up front planning must be done if you
intend to use look books to build out your
Intranet.

Kiefer can help your organization plan

for, build, and assist you in deploying an
enterprise intranet. Contact Kiefer to learn
more about the tools and best practices
that can help you in building an engaging
intranet experience for your organization.

www.kieferconsulting.com 11