Bad design is obvious. Good design is invisible. Which means most of us only notice it when something goes wrong.

Darin Gad knows that feeling well. With 15 years of experience helping organizations visualize and activate their internal communications strategy, she's Staffbase's in-house strategic design expert — advising enterprise teams when their intranet isn't quite hitting the mark or newsletters aren't doing what they set out to do.

After reviewing thousands of intranet and email designs — over 300 just last year — there’s one reflection she keeps coming back to. (Spoiler: it starts before the design brief.)

Off to Darin! — Kim

Pop quiz ↘

Every time someone asks me to review an intranet, newsletter, or internal campaign, the request usually sounds the same:

“Something feels off.”
“We need to improve the design.”
“Can you make this more engaging?”

Fair questions. But after reviewing thousands of employee communication experiences across industries, I've realized the problem is almost never design.

Earlier in my career, I used to think it was. My instinct was always to fix the layout. Tighten the hierarchy. Improve the spacing. That's how designers are trained to think.

But over time, I stopped fixing and started asking. Not “how do we make this look better?” but what wasn't being said at all.

Who is this really for?
What should employees actually take away from this?
Why does this need to exist right now?

Most of the time what’s needed is clarity, prioritization, or the courage to ask: Does this need to exist at all?

Recently, during a working session with a customer, someone on the team paused before I even gave feedback and said:

“This feels flat. Who is this actually for?”

This is the real question. Not the colors, not the layout, but the intention behind the communication itself.

Over the past year, I kept hearing the same hope: that AI would improve engagement, fix communication problems, and bring clarity to internal comms.

But that's not what happened. AI can surface gaps in messaging, patterns teams have stopped noticing, and information overload that most people in the room would never catch manually.

What it can't do is create clarity — it only reveals where clarity is missing.

A hard look in the mirror

Employees are incredibly good at filtering noise. They know immediately whether something helps them do their job or just competes for their attention.

When communication lacks focus or intention, AI will surface it instantly. AI acts like a mirror, forcing teams to ask not just how they communicate, but why.

The intranet that cried wolf

A lot of internal content exists out of obligation, not purpose — because another team asked for visibility, because leadership wanted something featured, until every update became “important.” And when everything is important, nothing stands out.

That's not a design problem. It's a content strategy problem.

Not every intranet has this problem. One of the most interesting contrasts I've seen this year is how differently organizations define a “successful” intranet.

Some feel like alarms that never stop ringing — critical banners, urgent updates, mandatory reads. The assumption is usually the same: If it’s on the intranet, it has to feel important.

But urgency loses power when everything screams for attention.

Then there are intranets with employee celebrations: community stories, photos of pets, and recognition posts.

At first glance, they can look less “serious” — but they're often far more engaging, because they understand something many organizations forget: connection builds attention. Trust builds engagement.

And when communication respects people's time, employees are far more likely to listen when something truly important actually appears.

When intention becomes clear, content becomes clearer. And when content becomes clearer, design has something meaningful to support.

Maybe that’s the bigger shift happening right now across communication, design, and AI altogether. People don’t need more information. They want clarity. Relevance. Simplicity. Humanity.

* * *

Have similar or different thoughts? I'd love to hear what you're seeing. Simply reply to this email or reach out on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn

Rethinking what really makes workplace communication work

Good design can't fix a clarity problem. If your internal comms aren't landing, the issue usually starts long before anyone opens a design tool. Here's a three-step framework to help.

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Nielsen Norman Group

Content strategy 101

Content strategy isn't just about what you publish — it's about what you don't. This article covers the full lifecycle of content, from planning to unpublishing, and why the strategy always comes before the tactics.

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LinkedIn

Designing systems employees actually want to use

Design systems work best when employees don't notice them at all. Alaska Airlines' comms team put that to the test — and when they broke their own rules for a company values update, engagement soared.

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