Intranet portals and how people navigate large information spaces
As we observed employees using their organization's intranet, we saw a stark trend: Almost always, users only fire up their browser when they have something to do. They have a mission in mind before they even bring up the portal's initial page.
As with other types of web pages, intranet portals succeed best when the scent to the employee's desired content is strong. However, because the portal engulfs all of the content from every site on the intranet, designers must take special care in their design. Time and resources for research and evaluation are necessary to guarantee a successful design.
Intranet Portals and Scent are Made for Each Other by Jared Spool