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I been working on two internal websites for my company. Currently I am facing the issue of combining both websites and kind of making a kind of portal. The first one users will see is a layout with an image slider of company announcements and have a top menu with some of the departmental content. The second site has a list of quick links in the form of image links to our applications and a main menu with links to forms and documents.

I guess the challenge is two have the two sites up, but integrated so that the users feel that they are on the same portal. Maybe similar to how ASP.net Master Pages work (ie., a general theme and different menus and elements) - something like this site which have different sub-sites, but is all the same concept, different headers

What I really need is advise about how to accomplish this the best way - what should I pay attention to as far as design, color matching, and themes?

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This question is way to broad to really be answered here. What you need to pay attention to first and foremost is the user experience: findability, navigation, search, etc. Do as much user-research as you can. As for 'design, color and themes' we'd have to know a lot more about your users to be of any specific help. – DA01 Oct 4 '11 at 5:48
I think this is primarily a system integration issue and secondarily a graphic design issue; more or less integrating two (same platform or not) intranet systems' UIs together, which is usually a programming task. – koiyu Oct 12 '11 at 11:28

closed as not a real question by DA01, Jack, koiyu, Farray, Joonas Dec 13 '11 at 21:42

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

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With the limited details you've provided, this is the most help I can provide...

  1. When marrying to sites together, you need to embrace their differences and keep their functionality transparent at different levels. For instance, if you have images depicting sections for both sites, you may consider changing the images for one of the sites to icons. Pick the site with the fewest pictorial options and change it's images into easily identifiable icons. With this approach, you can mix your style definitions (colors, type, etc.) and create a unified look and feel - while preserving seperate functions/features/areas even within a single presentation. [Hint - I would suggest your quick links become icons]

  2. It also doesn't hurt to keep the styles seperate from each other. The right design can employ two unique styles. There needs to be at least one element tying everything together in the end. Maybe it's your canvas. Maybe it's the way the actions appear or respond to user interaction. You can even tie different brands together with language. Abstraction can be your friend.

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