SharePoint: Upgrade Your Intranet Today

Key insights

• Common problems: Many SharePoint intranets look outdated because teams use dense layouts, ignore spacing, and pile content without hierarchy.
  Users face clutter, confusing navigation, and poor readability that reduce engagement.
• Design principles to apply: Use clear visual hierarchy, consistent spacing, and focused homepages so users find key items quickly.
  Favor simple templates and clear headings to guide attention and cut down scrolling.
• Practical fixes: Simplify the homepage, consolidate links into meaningful sections, and rebuild navigation around tasks not folders.
  Apply audience targeting and reusable components to keep pages relevant and consistent.
• Use built-in features: Modern intranets can be clean and powerful using out-of-the-box web parts, hub sites, and templates—no code needed for most improvements.
  Real examples show better communication and faster adoption when teams stick to standard tools.
• Who benefits: This approach helps designers, intranet owners, consultants, and business leaders who want a usable, modern portal.
  It targets people who need quick wins without heavy development.
• Quick wins and outcomes: Start with layout fixes, consistent templates, and improved navigation to see faster adoption and better search.
  These changes improve usability, support governance, and scale without costly rebuilds, delivering visible ROI.

Video at a Glance

In a recent YouTube video, Dougie Wood [MVP] critiques common intranet designs and shows practical ways to modernize them. He frames the problem plainly: many corporate intranets built on SharePoint feel outdated, cluttered, and hard to use. The video combines before-and-after screenshots with step-by-step guidance, so viewers can see problems and solutions in context.

Moreover, the presentation targets real-world work scenarios rather than theoretical ideas. Consequently, the recommendations focus on changes that require design decisions more than custom development. This makes the advice applicable to teams with limited developer resources.

Common Design Failures Identified

SharePoint intranets often fail because they treat the platform as a dumping ground for content instead of a user-centered workspace. Dougie highlights overloaded homepages, inconsistent spacing, poor visual hierarchy, and confusing navigation as recurring issues. He also points out that many older pages use legacy layouts that do not match modern expectations for clarity and speed.

In addition, permissions and information architecture commonly create hidden silos that frustrate users trying to find essential resources. When organizations ignore simple user experience principles, adoption drops and support requests rise. As a result, even technically sound deployments can underdeliver on business value.

Practical Fixes Demonstrated

Dougie walks viewers through concrete fixes that rely on built-in modern SharePoint features rather than custom code. For example, he emphasizes clear visual hierarchy by using large headings, white space, and consistent card layouts to make content scannable. He also shows how to simplify homepages so that the most critical links and news are visible above the fold.

Next, he demonstrates improving navigation with simpler menus and audience-targeted links so users see relevant items first. He also recommends reusable templates to keep pages consistent across teams and sites. These templates speed redesigns and reduce the chance of a return to inconsistent styles.

Tradeoffs and Implementation Challenges

While the suggested changes often avoid heavy development, they do involve tradeoffs between speed and control. For instance, adopting broad templates improves consistency, but teams may feel constrained if templates do not allow enough customization. Likewise, using audience targeting improves relevance but requires governance to keep audiences accurate and up to date.

Another challenge is balancing central governance with local ownership. Central teams can enforce brand and accessibility standards, yet too much central control can slow content updates and reduce local engagement. Therefore, the video stresses a phased rollout that pairs clear guidance with hands-on coaching so that power users can carry design standards forward without bottlenecks.

Steps to Move Forward

Dougie recommends starting with small, visible wins to build momentum and support for a broader redesign. First, audit the current intranet to find high-traffic pages and obvious clutter, and then prioritize fixes that improve daily tasks. Next, create a set of core page templates and a simple governance playbook that assigns roles for owners, editors, and reviewers.

He also urges teams to measure impact through usage metrics and regular user feedback, so they can iterate and avoid rebuilding the same problems. In addition, training and quick reference guides help content owners use templates properly and maintain consistent navigation. Finally, Dougie notes that adopting these practices typically raises user satisfaction and reduces the volume of help tickets.

Why This Matters for Organizations

Improving a SharePoint intranet is not only a cosmetic task; it directly affects productivity and employee engagement. When users can find policies, tools, and news quickly, they spend less time searching and more time on value-added work. As a result, well-designed intranets support better collaboration, clearer communications, and faster onboarding.

Overall, the video by Dougie Wood [MVP] offers a pragmatic blueprint for organizations that want to refresh their intranets without extensive development. By focusing on clarity, reuse, and governance, teams can create cleaner, more modern portals that people actually want to use. Therefore, companies can expect improved adoption and a stronger return on their Microsoft 365 investments when they apply these practical changes.

Keywords

SharePoint intranet design, Improve SharePoint intranet, Fix SharePoint intranet, Modern intranet design, SharePoint intranet alternatives, Intranet UX best practices, Microsoft 365 intranet strategy, SharePoint site branding