Microsoft has been rolling out new SharePoint features that enhance the visual layout — finally giving intranet designers more control and delivery flexibility. But be warned, it is not without its flaws or potential breaking points.
Starting late August into September 2025, SharePoint Online will support background images, overlay colors, and font presets in headers and footers — finally letting intranet designers stay on brand without turning to code. Meanwhile, “Flexible Sections,” released earlier in 2025, give content authors a freeform grid layout, drag-and-drop placement, layering, grouping, and mobile reflow capabilities — no SPFx required.
These updates don’t reinvent the UI — but they’re a meaningful upgrade for intranets: richer, more flexible, and more tailored. However, it’s still a work in progress, not a full design system. Layout discipline, mobile behavior, and performance still deserve your scrutiny.
Upgrades for Layouts and Design
1. Refreshed Header and Footer Controls (Rolling Out Late Aug–Sept 2025)
- Visual alignment with brand using background images, overlay colors, and a curated set of font families for navigation, titles, and footers.
- Footer alignment options including left-alignment.
- Cleaner view mode, with the command bar hidden to reduce distraction — though it remains discoverable for users who need it.
2. New Flexible Sections (Introduced Early 2025)
This feature gives authors a free-form grid to place, resize, layer, and group web parts — ushering in a level of design freedom previously only accessible via code-heavy customization.
- Web parts can be snapped anywhere on a 2D grid, with visual alignment guides.
- You can resize web parts dynamically, drag-and-drop them, and use snap-to-grid functionality.
- Layering and grouping are now real: overlap elements like a visual collage, stack them intentionally, and group items for synchronized movement.
- Section templates help you start with a polished layout — skip the blank canvas anxiety and stay consistent.
- Mobile responsiveness is baked in: layouts reflow sensibly, even though overlapping elements are automatically stacked for readability. You can also reorder content specifically for mobile display via section property
What This Means for the Digital Workplace
These aren’t just design toys — they matter. In the context of an intranet or internal communications hub, these enhancements lend aesthetic polish and brand consistency in sensible, scalable ways.
Pros:
- Design Elevation Without Code – No SPFx or custom CSS needed to stand out visually.
- Dynamic Layouts – Flexible Sections enable storytelling-style pages, dashboards, or campaign boards with layered visuals and structured content.
- Mobile-Friendly Yet Controlled – While you don’t get granular responsive design control, the reflow and mobile reorder features work passably well.
- Consistency at Scale – Use section templates to keep your site visually coherent across pages and teams.
But — don’t let the sheen obscure the flaws.
Cons & Caveats:
| Area | Limitation / Concern | |
| Responsive nuance | You still don’t get fine-grained mobile/desktop layout control — some elements may shift awkwardly on smaller screens despite stacking and reordering features. | |
| Learning curve & risk of overdesign | Flexible Sections are powerful — but now you’re one bad layout away from a cluttered intranet. Designers still need discipline. | |
| Performance considerations | Complex grids, overlapping content, and multiple web parts can impact page performance, especially on older devices or slow networks. | |
| Potential for layout breakage | SharePoint’s modern UI continues to shift. Custom layouts — even those using Flexible Sections — can falter with updates if underlying behavior changes. Classic customization has suffered this before. | |
| Template limitations | Templates are convenient, but not always flexible. They may not match every use case, requiring additional manual tweaks. | |
These new features give organizations much needed control over the design factor of their SharePoint Online sites. It’s a toolset that has been a long time coming. But while it provides better branding and layout options, it does have it’s flaws. It’s important that developers and designers understand the limitations, and recognize the potential break points as Microsoft continues to evolve their SharePoint environment.
As a Microsoft Partner and SharePoint-based Intranet implementation specialists, we’re happy to help you make sense of what’s possible — both with Out-of-the-Box features, and other tools like Powell or Omnia solutions that enhance the Microsoft experience.