A successful intranet starts with understanding your people, content and workflows — then following a clear process from discovery through to adoption.

A successful intranet should be much more than somewhere employees go to download a form, find a policy or read the latest company announcement.

Done well, it can become a central part of how an organisation works — helping people find information, access tools and services, collaborate and complete everyday tasks.

But intranet projects can become complex quickly. Different teams have different priorities, information is often spread across multiple systems, and organisational structures don't necessarily reflect how employees look for information.

At Digital Garden, we approach intranet and internal digital experience projects as a series of connected stages, beginning with understanding people and requirements before making decisions about design or technology.

1. Discovery

The first step is understanding the organisation and the people who will actually use the intranet.

Employees aren't one audience. Their roles, locations, responsibilities, digital confidence and information needs can vary considerably.

Depending on the project, our user research can include:

• stakeholder workshops
• one-on-one interviews
• focus groups
• surveys
• workplace observation
• contextual inquiry
• analytics and search analysis
• benchmarking.

The objective is to understand what employees are trying to accomplish, where they currently go for information, what works well and where the frustrations are.

This evidence gives the project a much stronger foundation than designing around assumptions.

2. Strategy

Once we understand the users and organisational requirements, we can define what role the intranet should actually play.

Some of the questions we consider include:

Content: What information belongs on the intranet? Who owns it? How should it be structured and maintained?

Communication: How will the organisation communicate with employees, and what role should the intranet play alongside email, Teams and other channels?

Collaboration: Does the intranet need to support teams and communities, or should collaboration happen through other platforms?

Culture: Should the intranet primarily reflect the organisation's existing culture, or is it intended to support broader organisational or cultural change?

Activity: Is it predominantly a source of information, or should it be a place where employees actually do things — submitting requests, accessing services and completing business processes?

Answering these questions creates a clearer vision for the intranet before individual features start being defined.

3. Functionality

The next step is translating the strategy into practical requirements.

Every organisation is different, so rather than beginning with a standard feature list, we consider what employees genuinely need.

That might include:

• personalised content
• search
• staff directories
• news and announcements
• multilingual content
• forms and workflows
• document and policy libraries
• collaboration tools
• notifications
• employee services
• knowledge management
• integrations with HR, identity, document management and other business systems.

It's also important to understand the broader digital ecosystem.

Employees may already spend much of their day in Microsoft 365, Teams, SharePoint or specialist business systems. A new intranet shouldn't simply become another disconnected destination they need to remember.

Where possible, it should bring information, tools and services together and fit naturally into the way people already work.

4. UX and design

With the requirements established, the experience can be designed around users rather than the organisation's internal structure.

This typically includes information architecture, user journeys, wireframes and interactive prototypes.

Information architecture is particularly important.

Employees generally aren't thinking “Which department owns this information?” They're thinking “How do I book leave?”, “Where can I find this policy?” or “Who do I speak to about this?”

A good information architecture uses language and pathways that make sense to employees.

Techniques such as card sorting, tree testing and usability testing can then validate those decisions before significant development begins.

Accessibility should also be considered throughout the design process. An internal audience is still a diverse audience, accessing information using different devices, technologies and working environments.

5. Technology

Technology decisions should come after the organisation, users and functional requirements are understood.

For many organisations, Microsoft SharePoint is a natural choice for an intranet, particularly where Microsoft 365, Teams, Entra ID and other Microsoft services are already embedded across the organisation.

For others, Drupal or another digital experience platform may provide greater flexibility for more customised internal platforms, complex content requirements or integrations.

The appropriate solution depends on factors including:

• existing technology and Microsoft 365 environment
• authentication and permissions
• integrations with business systems
• security requirements
• content and publishing workflows
• search and findability
• personalisation
• internal capability
• hosting
• ongoing support and maintenance.

Technical discovery should identify these requirements and dependencies early, helping determine whether SharePoint, Drupal or another platform provides the best fit.

The technology should support the experience and requirements we've identified — not dictate them.

6. Implementation

Implementation is where the research, strategy and design are translated into a working digital experience.

Depending on the solution, this can include establishing the platform, implementing the agreed information architecture, configuring content types and publishing workflows, developing reusable components, integrating external systems and implementing search and other functionality.

Where specialist platform expertise is required, Digital Garden can work alongside internal technology teams or implementation partners while maintaining continuity across strategy, UX and design.

Testing should happen throughout the process rather than being left until the end. This can include functional and cross-device testing, accessibility testing, user acceptance testing and further usability testing for more complex interactions.

7. Content and migration

A new intranet is also an opportunity to deal with years of accumulated content.

Simply migrating everything from the existing intranet can recreate the same problems on a newer platform.

Before migration, content should be reviewed to understand:

• what should be retained
• what is outdated
• where duplication exists
• what should be consolidated or rewritten
• who owns each area of content
• how frequently it should be reviewed.

Depending on the volume and structure of the existing content, migration may be manual, automated or a combination of both.

The objective isn't simply to move the old intranet. It's to create a better and more manageable source of organisational information.

8. Adoption and continuous improvement

Launching an intranet doesn't automatically mean employees will use it.

Adoption needs to be considered as part of the project.

That includes training content authors and administrators, establishing publishing standards, defining content ownership and governance, and helping employees understand how the new intranet fits into their everyday work.

There should also be a clear process for what happens after launch.

Who decides what changes? Who owns the platform? How is feedback collected? How often is content reviewed? How will improvements be prioritised?

Analytics, search data, employee feedback and usability testing can all reveal where the experience can continue to improve.

A successful intranet should be treated as an evolving digital product rather than a project that ends on launch day.

Designing around how people work

Successful intranet projects need to reflect how people actually access information and complete tasks within an organisation.

Digital Garden's work with the Victorian Government Department of Transport and Planning is an example of applying user-centred design to a complex internal digital environment.

Understanding different user groups, their information needs and existing ways of working helps determine the right information architecture, functionality and experience before technology decisions are made.

The principle is simple: understand how people actually work before deciding what the solution should look like.

What makes an intranet successful?

A successful intranet isn't defined by the number of features it contains or whether it's built on SharePoint, Drupal or another platform.

It's defined by whether employees find it useful.

Can they find the information they need? Can they complete common tasks easily? Does it connect them with the right tools and services? Can they trust that the information is accurate and current?

Get those foundations right and an intranet becomes much more than an internal website.

It becomes part of how the organisation works.