Setting up a new intranet architecture (IA)

Learn about planning an information architecture with your audience in mind, and features that will assist with clear navigation.

On this page

• Intranet layouts
• Clear navigation

Intranet layouts

Before setting up a ministry's new intranet, you need to understand your audience. Doing user testing helps you understand who uses the content, what they need and how they expect to find it. Once you understand who your audience is you can choose which style of layout makes the most sense for their use cases.

Functional layout

With smaller ministry intranets, because there are not as many divisions or business areas, their intranets are often organized by things an employee might need to find on the site. Such as information on:

• Performance development
• Employee resources

For example, the Mental Health and Addictions intranet (internal link).

This makes it easy for new staff to navigate but can lead to resources about high priority programs and team resources being lower down in the information architecture (IA).

Layout based on business areas

Larger ministries are more likely to use an IA based on business areas which mirrors the organizational chart. For example, the Ministry of Forests intranet (internal link).

This is useful for groups with lots of content that's unique to individual branches. This is sometimes easier for employees who know the organization to find what they’re looking for, but can be more difficult for newer employees.

Combination layout

While both layouts have positives, a combination is often needed. For example, the Economy Sector intranet (internal link) has functional elements always available from the home and hamburger menu. Each ministry also has a theme to populate their own content.

If you’re using a combination layout make sure there's no duplication between the top level and the division content. Keep the division content focused on what's unique to the business area, and link to corporate content such as benefits and org charts instead of recreating it.

Clear navigation

Navigation is very important with an intranet because people cannot rely on search engines such as Google to find content. This means your site must have clear navigation that's easy to use.

Only hide the navigation if:

• You have content that's sitting with unrelated content. In this case, the left navigation may cause confusion
• Content is best viewed using the full screen, such as infographics or charts

Left side navigation

CMS Lite offers the ability to hide the left side navigation.

Note: Hiding the left navigation can be confusing for users. Before you decide to hide it, do user testing with the people who use your content.

Hiding content from the main IA

You need to make sure people can find content easily. Do not put content on the top level of your IA and then hide it. If there's no clear space where it fits, consider if it belongs on the intranet, or a new section of the IA needs to be created. If you're not sure, reach out to your ministry's web team. If your ministry does not have a web team, pose your question in the Intranet Support channel on Teams (internal link). 

Navigation in a CMS Lite intranet

On a theme page, the navigation consists of tiles which appear automatically on the lower half of the page. The tiles are generated by the child pages below the theme in the IA. Left hand navigation does not display on a theme page.

Child pages that are theme pages

If your child page is a theme page, you’ll be able to set distinct ‘tile text’ on the intranet theme tab. That text will only display on the tile associated with that page. For examples, the Ministry of Citizens' Services intranet (internal link). 

Child pages directly below the home page are used for navigation and do not have much text.

Theme pages at level 2 do not have whitespace behind the intro field, instead it will be a grey/blue hue (colour code: #F1F1F1).

When you place a theme page at level 3, you may have more information in the intro field, it will then display more like a topic page with a white background behind that intro field.

Child pages that are topic pages

If the child page is a topic page, there will not be a field to set the tile text associated with the page. Instead, the intro field will be used to populate the tile for navigation. Whatever text/graphics you place in that intro field must work for both the page intro and as tile text.

If you leave either the tile text or the intro field blank the tile on the parent page will also be empty. 

The tile field is not responsive to size. For example, if you use a bulleted list and stay within the character limit but go past the 275 pixel height, the list will get cut off. Similarly on the home page, if you go past the two lines of text that fit in the 70 pixel height box, your content will be cut off.

Hamburger menu

The Hamburger menu is on the upper right corner of every page, next to your site search will shows all the pages included in levels 2 and 3 of your IA.