There are many different types of user interface and what you choose depends on what is relevant to your intranet audience.

Some examples are:

• A search engine
• A drop down menu
• A button to go straight to a task

When creating a user interface, you should consider the following factors:

Keep it simple

Make sure you keep your interface clear and simple. A good user interface will make it obvious how to carry out a particular task or function.  If your staff can’t understand how to perform a function they will get frustrated and confused.

Consistency

Be consistent. If you provide a clickable button for booking a holiday, make sure that a button is provided to access other similar tasks. This will help your staff predict the type of action they need to perform when carrying out other tasks.

Efficiency

One of your key objectives is to reduce the time your employees spend searching for information. This means you will need to identify what your user is trying to achieve, what is their end goal? A good interface will help staff achieve what they need to do with minimum fuss, fast.

Having a user interface that is simple, consistent and efficient will make it easy for your staff to perform tasks on their intranet. When an interface is user friendly your staff will be able to access what they need quickly, creating a more efficient and productive workforce.

In the first four articles on writing a creative brief, we discussed the importance of including a company profile, identifying your target audience, how you will speak to them and intranet goals.

In this article, we will discuss why the timescales and budget for your intranet need to be included in your creative brief.

Once your intranet designer has a good understanding of your timescales and budget, they can create a design that realistically meets your needs. Photographers, illustrators, and other resources such as media, fonts and stock images will all have cost and time implications, so they will need to be aware of what your budget and timescales can accommodate.

The answers to the following should be included in your creative brief, keep in mind your SMART intranet goals:

Budget

• Specific – what is your budget?
• Measurable – how much is your budget?
• Achievable – is it realistic? Do you have a contingency plan?

It’s always a good idea to keep your project sponsor informed of any budget and cost implications. Also, remember to make allowances for any additional editing costs.

Timescale

• Realistic – When does the project need to be completed by?
• Timely – Do you have any specific deadlines? How will overruns affect your overall intranet project?

If you need the intranet to coincide with any other marketing, make sure that your designer is aware of this.

Including information on your design budget and timescales within your creative brief will give your intranet designer a good idea of the type of design they can realistically achieve.

You will now have all the information to be included in your creative brief. The next step is to discuss your creative brief with your intranet designer and have a design created.

In the first three parts we discussed the importance of including a company profile, information on your target audience and how you will speak to them within your brief.

In this article we will discuss the importance of including your intranet goals within your creative brief.

During the planning stage of your intranet, you will have set out some SMART goals for your intranet (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound). These goals will include the aims and objectives of your intranet. It is important to include this information within your brief so that your intranet designer understands what you are trying to achieve from your intranet.

You will need to mention whether your intranet is:

• Mainly used to help employees complete tasks
• Mainly used to communicate to employees
• A combination of both

If you have a task based intranet your focus will be on processes such as accessing documents. If your intranet is communications driven then the focus will be on news articles and company information. Alternatively, the business priorities may be to provide a combination of both news and processes.

Having this information will help your designer understand which content should be on key pages of your intranet.

Including this information in your creative brief will help your intranet designer create a layout and design that fits in with your business objectives.

After you have covered intranet goals, you will now want to consider your budget and timescales. We will cover this in our next article.

A creative brief is a document that is used to guide your intranet designer, giving them as much information as possible about your organisation to help them create your intranet design.

In the first two parts of our writing a creative brief articles, we discussed the importance of including a company overview and specifying your target audience within your brief.

In this article we will discuss the importance of your brand guidelines within your creative brief and how to adapt that to your intranet audience.

Brand guidelines are created to ensure that your brand presents a consistent message. They specify the type of graphics that are appropriate to your organisation and the tone of voice that you should use when speaking to your audience. Providing your intranet designer with this information will help them to create a design appropriate to your organisation.

Brand guidelines will contain the following to guide how the brand is visually represented:

• Company Logo
• Product Logo
• Company Specific typefaces/fonts
• Stock Images
• Colour Guidelines

One of the most common areas that may need to be aligned to your audience is the tone of voice you use. This is the type of language that you use to speak to your audience.

The tone of voice used within your brand guidelines would have most likely been created for your external audience, so it may need to be adapted to suit your internal audience.

Some things to consider with tone of voice for your intranet are:

• Keep it simple
• Use conversational language
• Use language that is appropriate to your particular audience

Understanding your tone of voice will help your intranet designer create a design that appeals to your users. Consider the difference in the writing and graphics used in a broad sheet newspaper compared to a tabloid. Each one caters for a different type of audience.

Including brand guidelines for your intranet within your creative brief will help your designer understand your company’s expectations. This will give your intranet designer clear guidelines to work from when they create your design.

Once you have documented your tone of voice, you will now need to include your intranet goals which we will cover in the next article.

In the last article we covered the importance of writing a company profile to give them an understanding of your organisation’s business and operational structure.

Once this has been completed, you will need to provide details to your designer of who your intranet’s target audience is going to be.

Any type of demographic information that you may have will be useful.

This may include:

• Age
• Sex
• Income
• Occupation
• Location

This information will enable your intranet to be designed to appeal to your target audience.

If your intranet is aimed at a predominantly male audience under the age of 25, you will want to use colours and a design that will appeal to this demographic. If you were designing for a female audience the presentation may be completely different.

Provide design examples

Include examples of designs you like and don’t like. If you’re not sure where to start, have a look at sales literature, brand guidelines, product brochures and marketing material. These are used to get design cues and don’t necessarily have to be from your own company.

You can then explain what you like/dislike about the:-

• Colour
• Imagery
• Quantity of text
• The atmosphere the design creates

Understanding your tastes will help your designer create a design that is appropriate for your organisation.

Research other intranets

You may want to have a look at other intranets to see what imagery has been used by other organisations. Your intranet provider should be able to provide you with examples of sites they have implemented, why certain styles work and how they have aided usability. Alternatively, you may wish to attend intranet showcases or seminars to get some inspiration. Looking at other sites will give you an idea of the type of visuals that you like or dislike and these can then be discussed with your designer.

Once you have given your designer an understanding of your target audience, you can decide how you wish to speak to your chosen audience. We will discuss this further in the next article.

A creative brief is normally written after you have tested your intranet and are now ready to create the design.

Over the next five articles we will explain the main points to consider when creating your brief.

In this article we will cover writing a company profile as part of your creative brief.

The company profile is a written synopsis of the organisation or company and should be the first part of the brief that you create. You should be able to find this information in your existing corporate literature such as company reports.

When this is written it should be assumed that your designer has no prior knowledge about your organisation or the industry sector you operate in.

The type of information that should be included is:

• What your organisation does
• How long has your business been established and how many staff do you employ?
• What industry sector do you operate in?
• How do you compete within your niche market?
• How does your business fit into your industry sector?

All of this information will give your designer a strong overview of the company. The next step is to clearly define your target audience which we will cover in the next article.

Wireframes can be as simple or as complicated as you like. They could be a sketch on graph paper or they could be created using drawing software.

Some of the benefits of creating wireframes are:-

• Your end users can assess whether the design works.
• Several different options can be created without any cost other than time.
• Missed areas can be identified

What should you include in your wireframe?

Try to include as much detail as possible, such as:

• navigation buttons
• content
• graphics