Are you wasting your time designing intranet access for mobile devices?
Do you spend time designing your intranet to be accessible to employees on their phones and mobile devices? If so, it seems you’re probably wasting your time!
The reality is, virtually no one seems to access the company intranet via their mobile phone.
SWOOP Analytics’ benchmarking of SharePoint intranets found a whopping 99.76% of employees access the intranet via their desktop. Only 0.22% of employees access the intranet via their phone and 0.02% by a tablet.
Devices used to access SharePoint intranet. Research from SWOOP Analytics’ 2023 SharePoint intranet benchmarking study.
We were more than a little surprised by these numbers, so we reached out to the world’s premier intranet thought leaders and specialists to see if our real-life data from 36,400+ intranet pages matched their experience.
Turns out, it pretty much does.
Sharon O’Dea, Co-founder, Lithos Partners.
Sharon O’Dea and Jonathan Phillips, co-founders of UK-based digital communication and collaboration consultancy Lithos Partners, said SWOOP’s findings align with their own extensive experience, and asked if it’s time to question the focus on poor intranet mobile access rates. Really, who wants to read a long work-related article on their mobile phone?
Jonathan Phillips, Co-founder, Lithos Partners.
“We’ve rolled out tens of mobile-enabled or optimised intranets ourselves, and have data on many more from our own DWXS study (Digital Workplace Experience Study), and few have seen high levels of mobile usage, even where high demand might be expected,” Sharon said.
“Businesses often make the intranet available to personal devices, but mobile experiences are generally poor, especially for long read content and applications.”
Sharon said organisations often work hard to make the intranet available to users on personal mobiles, but this isn’t always matched by demand.
“Nor by any consideration of what users might actually want to read on their mobiles,” she said.
“In reality, mobile intranets tend to be used primarily for transactional tasks.
“Reading SWOOP’s findings made us ask: are we as an industry overfocusing on the mobile? Is it really the way employees want to interact with the intranet?”
Chris Harrer, Assistant Vice President, Internal Communications – Digital, Comcast.
Chris Harrer, Assistant Vice President, Internal Communications – Digital, at US-based technology and entertainment giant Comcast with almost 190,000 employees, says mobile intranet access has always been difficult due to multi-factor authentication and security logins.
“If accessing the intranet on the go, you are going for a reason to accomplish something and as soon as you hit that login, you’re done,” he summarised.
“Desktop access is always seamless with no login required. Also, desktop access is usually more geared towards knowledge/office workers that have more time to go to the intranet than the mobile or frontline workforce.”
However, Chris’ initial findings for Comcast’s new global intranet with Microsoft Teams integration via Viva Connections showed 30% of Viva Connections users were accessing the mobile experience.
“One reason for this could be that there is no more log in,” he said.
“You’re already in the Teams app on your mobile device and logged into the ecosystem and just a click away from the intranet with no login required.”
Chris said a majority of the mobile usage was going to the “feed” of Viva Connections, which is the personalised news and Viva Engage feed.
“Overall, whether desktop or mobile, your communications strategy should not change,” Chris advised.
“Your writing approach and formatting of content may need to be adjusted, but your content strategy should not change and should still be geared towards the business objectives.”
Susan Hanley, Microsoft SharePoint and M365 specialist.
Microsoft SharePoint and M365 specialist Susan Hanley said SWOOP’s finding of extremely low mobile phone intranet access is completely consistent with her experience.
She suggested one reason for the low rate could be because people haven’t been travelling, or been “mobile”, during the past three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“But even pre-COVID, none of my clients were seeing a lot of mobile use of the intranet,” Susan said.
“I suspect that this answer might be different for frontline workers, but I still haven’t found a client that is providing easy intranet access to frontline workers.
“This finding doesn’t surprise me at all!”
Suzie Robinson, Specialist, ClearBox Consulting.
It’s the chicken and egg situation when it comes to intranets on mobile, says Suzie Robinson, a specialist at UK-based intranet consultancy ClearBox Consulting.
Mobile usage is low, so there isn’t a focus on developing the mobile experience. Because the mobile experience is poor, people don’t access the intranet on mobile. And SharePoint intranet remains somewhat lacking when it comes to mobile access.
“However, I believe that allowing people to access the intranet from wherever they are is incredibly valuable,” Suzie said.
Imagine, Suzie says, if people could check their vacation allowance while discussing a travel agent’s deal with their partner at home – with the policy on the intranet, an integration to Workday to allow them to check their remaining vacation days, and a simple form to complete to request the time off.
“Or, more simply, using a mobile as a second screen during a Teams call to check reference materials,” she said.
“All of these are use cases we’ve seen with clients and offer more purpose to an intranet app than simply being somewhere to read news.”
Suzie said organisations with frontline workers are more likely to be addressing mobile tools.
“Desk-based and deskless audiences should…be addressed separately with tools and devices that are most appropriate to their needs, but they should be able to speak to each other and have access to the same quality of information/tools,” she said.
Jonas Bladt Hansen, Co-founder, Next Level IC.
Most intranets are designed to be used on desktops, says Jonas Bladt Hansen, co-founder of Danish internal communications consultancy Next Level IC, and the reality is, the SharePoint mobile app has limitations.
“The (SharePoint mobile app) user experience is underwhelming, and it doesn’t help when the pages are not designed for mobile use with short text and clear call to actions, which is rarely the case,” he said.
“Often, there is too much information on the page, which can work on a laptop but certainly not on mobile.”
Jonas also notes the use cases for accessing the intranet on mobile phones and the desktop are usually different.
“The needs for people on-the-go focus on getting specific tasks done and only features/templates and information that assists them with this is really helpful,” he said.
“And today it’s rarely the case that SharePoint intranets are able to assist with that.”
Jonas says intranet managers have several options:
Recognise that SharePoint’s mobile experience might not boost user adoption and consider vendors offering a superior mobile experience.
Prioritise understanding the unique needs of mobile intranet users and design accordingly.
Enhance the mobile experience through personalisation, and use targeted push notifications to relay pertinent work-related information.
Jamie Stokes, Director, Digital Communications, Cox Enterprises.
The low mobile usage to access the intranet came as no surprise to Jamie Stokes, Director, Digital Communications at Cox Enterprises, America’s largest private broadband company.
However, Cox Enterprise has mobile intranet usage within the 8-9% range.
Jamie believes there is a variety of factors around mobile intranet usage including easy access and whether employees have personal or company mobile devices.
She also suggests a separate content strategy for desktop and field workers to boost mobile intranet engagement.
Australian-based intranet consultancy Step Two has developed a framework for enterprise mobility - the five layers of enterprise mobile design.
Step Two’s five layers of enterprise mobile design.
James Robertson, Owner, Step Two.
Owner of Step Two, James Robertson, says it’s clear that challenges still remain around access, the lowest level on the framework. Licenses may not be available for frontline workers, or they may not have the necessary devices.
In relation to SWOOP Analytics’ finding about intranet mobile usage, James said we’re largely talking about the “touch” layer.
“Are people using their responsively designed intranet on mobile devices? While SharePoint Modern makes this pretty easy to do, it’s questionable whether there’s a compelling what’s-in-it-for me factor for mobile workers,” James said.
“Reading corporate news may not be enough, and scrolling through a 25-page policy in a SharePoint document library is a non-starter.
“For us, the challenge and opportunity for M365-based intranets is to deliver more relevant and functional experiences for frontline workers, that understand the ‘context’ and ‘process’.”
James said he sees usage of SharePoint intranets via mobile devices continuing to languish until intranets are better targeted to the needs and activities of field and frontline workers.
