An interesting thing about university intanets is how they serve two distinct groups – the staff and the students.
It’s also striking how the state of university intranets mirrors the state of corporate and medium-sized business intranets – in that some appear to be modern, useful, and user-centred and others seem to be basic broadcast websites.
University intranet / extranet home page screenshots
Browsing intranet home pages feels a bit like window-shopping for gadgets you don’t need. You can glean insights into how best to present tools, functions, and communications though, if you consider what seems to work well and what seems old-fashioned or cumbersome.
Click the screenshots to embiggen. (Then come ‘back’ to return.)
University of Birmingham
- Clear and simple;
- Carousel at top;
- Accordian / concertina at bottom;
- No ‘master’ navigation apparant.
University of Salford
- Staff focussed;
- Clear navigation;
- Boxy design helps separate sections;
- Large footer;
- Demonstrates the Internal Comms team’s skills.
Brunel University
- Clear navigation;
- Seems to be a bit of a hub or portal.
University of Warwick
- General navigation;
- Tabbed news content.
Robert Gordon University Aberdeen
- Hub or portal;
- Clear navigation;
- Shows they use Moodle for elarning.
Bangor University
- Striking number of simple blue links;
- ‘Quick-links’…
- Very long page;
- Get’s interesting at the bottom…
University of the West of England
- Detailed left-hand navigation;
- Seems small (on the screen).
London Metropolitan University
- Student / Staff news via tabbed content section;
- An excess of plain blue links;
- A-Z ordering, instead of meaningful groupings…
Edinburgh Napier University
- Uni news / Staff news by way of tab;
- Basic / Advanced details by way of radio-button (does anyone use?);
- ‘Announcements’ separate to news.
University of Bradford
- Carousel at top;
- ‘Events’ content box has lots of content to see if you press ‘next’ – but it refreshes the whole page (it seems). Why hide single content pieces?
Birbeck University
- Stretches across the whole page – making for a very wide home page on some screens (not responsive web design, merely elastic);
- Although plain-looking, it still gets the job done.
University of Bath
- Displays news in segments;
- Great use of photos for featured articles.
University of Sussex
- A winning intranet;
- Tabbed navigation separates students from staff;
- Pleasant layout for easy reading;
- Does it highlight tools enough?
University of Kent
- Lots of links / navigation – but grouped by audience / purpose;
- No photos for featured articles.
I would like to stress that these intrants are part extranets – meaning you can browse them yourself – they are online for all to see.
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14 university #intranet home pages: http://kilobox.net/3214 – by @Wedge
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