A portal is a web-based platform that collects information from different sources into a single user interface and presents users with the most relevant information for their context. Over time, simple web portals have evolved into portal platforms that support digital customer experience initiatives.

Web Portals Are About Personalized Access

The problem portals tried to solve in the early days of the internet was content discovery. In the face of the vast amount of information available online, the easiest way for the average user to discover information was through a human-curated content hub, known as a portal. Portals could display selected content in order to provide a custom experience for users.

Examples of portals, particularly those that use a login experience, abound in most industries:

• Patient Portals
• Government Portals
• Intranets/Extranets/Workplace Portals
• Knowledge Management Portals
• Student Portals
• Vendor Portals

The basic, uniting concept for each type of portal is personalized access, based on an assigned or assumed user role. For example, workplaces typically have multiple applications that their employees need to access, such as an application for recording time sheets, another for scheduling time off and a third for sending internal communications. Employees are frustrated when they have too many touchpoints that they need to jump between as part of their daily routine. A new employee portal brings together these common services and applications into one place for your team to access, and can further customize the page based on department or role. This personalization can also extend to anonymous users. Clothing retail sites, for instance, can begin personalizing which products are displayed based on stored information from past visits, even if the user hasn’t created an account.

From Web Portals to Portal Platforms

Today, the average user can address the problem of content discovery with search engines, which have become more adept at serving relevant results. This, plus the information sharing capabilities offered by social media, means that human-curated lists of information are not a necessary starting place for most users. However, the three distinguishing strengths of portals — integration, consistency and personalization — are essential components of an increasingly important part of business today