The homepage test
Your intranet homepage has one job that sounds simple and is surprisingly easy to mess up.
Help employees find what matters.
It should welcome them, guide them, surface key updates, connect them to tools, and make work feel a little less like a digital treasure hunt.
No pressure.
But employees do not arrive with unlimited patience. They scan. They judge. They decide quickly whether the homepage is useful or whether Teams, search, or that suspiciously old bookmarked link will do the job faster.
That decision usually comes down to four things.
Clarity. Relevance. Usability. Trust. Four words that decide whether employees come back, or quietly take the scenic route elsewhere.
What makes or breaks it?
The four homepage essentials employees notice fast.
Not in a formal audit kind of way. More in a “can I find the thing I need before my next meeting starts?” kind of way.
01 · Clarity
Can employees see what matters?
A strong homepage makes priorities obvious.
Not every banner can be urgent. Not every department update needs the main stage. And no, adding one more tile will not magically make the page clearer.
When everything competes for attention, employees have to work out what is important by themselves. Most will not. They will leave.
A clear homepage answers:
- What matters today?
- Where should I go?
- What do I need to do next?
02 · Relevance
Does it feel made for them?
A homepage can look great and still feel completely irrelevant.
That is the risk of a one-size-fits-everyone experience. A new hire, a manager, a frontline worker, and someone in finance are not looking for the same things.
Shocking, we know.
Relevance does not mean creating a different intranet for every person. It means showing people content, tools, and updates that match their role, location, needs, or moment.
03 · Usability
Can employees get things done?
Employees do not visit the intranet to admire the layout.
They want to find a policy, submit a request, open a tool, read an update, register for an event, or complete a task without needing a map and a motivational speech.
“Employee Services” could mean anything.
“Submit an expense” means something.
The homepage should help employees move, not make them decode the organization.
04 · Trust
Can employees rely on it?
Trust is what keeps people coming back.
If employees find outdated news, broken links, duplicate documents, or content that no longer applies, they learn a simple lesson:
A trusted homepage is current, owned, consistent, and useful. Employees should not have to wonder whether what they are seeing is still valid.
The real homepage test
The best intranet homepages do not try to show everything.
They help employees understand, find, act, and trust.
❌Not the real test
- Whether the page is full.
- Whether every department got a tile.
- Whether the carousel is finally living its best life.
✅The real question
Can employees land on the homepage and quickly think, “I know where I am, I know what matters, and I know what to do next”?
Small page, big impact
The homepage may be just one page, but it shapes the entire intranet experience.
It affects adoption, communication, trust, and whether employees come back tomorrow.
Four things make the difference: clarity, relevance, usability, and trust.
Clarity
Employees instantly understand what matters.
Relevance
The experience feels connected to their work.
Usability
The homepage helps people act quickly.
Trust
Employees know the information is reliable.
Trinity Resting
Product Marketing Manager
Product marketing doesn’t have to be all jargon and slides—Trinity’s here to prove it’s about creating human connections. With 5 years in digital marketing, she’s been scaling, building, and transforming product strategies that resonate with real people. At Powell, Trinity ensures the message isn’t just heard, but felt. She’s passionate about helping teams go beyond the office and build lasting relationships. When she’s not crafting strategies, you’ll find her sipping tea (she’s a self-proclaimed tea-aholic) or working as a professional dog sitter—because, let’s be honest, dogs are the ultimate team players.
