In the context of an internal SharePoint solution I think that branding, in any more detail than basic colour and logo could be considered as a waste of investment.
I question whether an organisation can justify the investment required for awesome branding based upon the following questions:
- Does it help the organisation move towards its vision?
- What is the ROI of the branding work?
- Does the branding deliver clear and measurable business value?
- Does branding support and encourage user adoption?
Discuss….
Interesting points Scott, appreciate your input.Â
Re: “…plays a vital role in portraying and enforcing a cohesive brand throughout an organization…”
AND
 “A basic, custom-branded master page to conform to an organization’s branding guidelines”
Absolutely, that is a sensible and balanced approach that makes sense and absolutely can creative a cohesive brand, but I’d argue that that alone isn’t going to have much sustainable influence over user adoption in the medium to long term?
Regarding your second lot of points:
“…they want to provide a thoughtfully-designed, engaging Intranet to their users. You only have one chance to make a first impression, right?! The look and feel of the Intranet will ultimately determine the interest level of the users…”
I agree that first impressions are important, but I think alignment to the vision and measurable business outcomes have more weight in the “user adoption challenge” than extensive branding.
Let’s face it Excel looks crap, but from a business value perspective it still wins.
It’s a tricky area… I’d much prefer orgs diverted project fund from extensive and/or complicated branding activities to facilitating a vision and/or holistic Governance…But that’s just what I think.
In my opinion, branding is paramount to the organizational adoption and ultimately the success of a SharePoint Intranet. Okay, that may have been overstating it a bit but I do believe it plays a vital role in portraying and enforcing a cohesive brand throughout an organization. SharePoint branding efforts really don’t require as large an investment as many believe. A basic, custom-branded master page to conform to an organization’s branding guidelines can take as little as a few hours and the outcome can be drastic and tremendously successful.
ROI is tough to measure in many Intranet scenarios (I think) but the plan truth is that organizations want to make it their own. They want to provide a thoughtfully-designed, engaging Intranet to their users. You only have one chance to make a first impression, right?! The look and feel of the Intranet will ultimately determine the interest level of the users. Content is king, don’t get me wrong, but well-presented content is much more effective than poorly presented content (imo).
Thanks Mark, yes I agree that keeping it simple is the best way. there are of course other reasons why more effort should be made if its to support a strong organisational culture, support change or support disabilities etc. But as a Basic rule of thumb, I’m all for just logo and basic branding and focus on delivering value and organisational change…
I do tend to think branding in some orgs is completely over done! Some places change SharePoint so much that you can barely tell its SharePoint any more. We don’t brand the Windows desktop (change colours of buttons, fonts etc), so why are we doing it to SharePoint ? Answer – because it’s a “web site” where its tradition to attach the CSS within it.Â
I personally think we should keep it simple, stick a logo in there and only “maybe” a custom theme and that’s it!
Thanks Vlad, but being devil’s advocate why does a business tool have to look [overly] good.
We don’t brand SAP, or Excel or Word or (quite often) the Finance system, but people still use them because they:
(a) Have to
(b) It delivers value as is
(c) Looks don’t matter.
Also, I think logo and colour and general branding are only a very small part of ‘the company image’. Things that I think are more important are:
- Identity
- Culture
- Ways of Working
- Values
- Vision.
Much more important and powerful than a ‘detailed branding’ I think..
