Transcript Designing Sites so that Users Love Them … or at least use them Susan Hanley President/ Susan Hanley LLC [email protected] www.susanhanley.com.

Designing Sites so that Users Love Them … or at least use them
Susan Hanley
President/ Susan Hanley LLC
[email protected]
www.susanhanley.com
Agenda
Getting Started: Understand the Secrets of Successful
SharePoint Solutions
Information Architecture Essentials
Site Architecture
Page Layout
Metadata Architecture
Lessons Learned: What Seems to Work with End Users (and
what to avoid)
Getting Started: the Secrets of Successful Solutions
Identify Your Stakeholders
Understand Their Business Objectives
Understand SharePoint: Choose the Right Solution Component
for the Job
Identify How Success Will Be Measured
Define Procedures for Governance, including Content
Management
Plan Roll-Out and Launch
Understanding Your Users and Their Objectives
What information do you use to do your job?
How do you currently organize that information?
When you need to solve a problem, what people and
information do you use?
What information technology tools do you use today?
What do you like about them?
What drives you crazy?
How much SharePoint training have you had?
What are the key business challenges in your organization?
It’s really about understanding the user …
… and understanding SharePoint so that you can offer the best
approach for the user’s objectives
Meeting Workspaces
Blogs
Updated frequently
Authentic
Wiki vs. Document
Wikis are best where content is designed to be presented on the
web and multiple people contribute to the content
Acronym/Term Definitions
Knowledgebase Articles
Wikis have been improved in SharePoint 2010, but they still require
careful design and user training
You may just really need a document that multiple people can edit.
Don’t be afraid of documents. They are not going away and with
collaborative editing in Office and SharePoint 2010, they may be
the “right” answer.
InfoPath vs. Custom List
Identify the Measures of Success
Track each measure to your business objectives.
For each objective, identify:
Possible Measure: Quantitative and Qualitative
Capture Frequency and Technique
Issues and Challenges
Target and Goal
Define Processes for Governance and Guiding Principles for Site
Designers
Consistent user experience – “get over yourself”
Design with the end user in mind – minimize the need for
training – don’t assume everyone will “get it”
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should (“with great
power comes great responsibility”) – you don’t have to
implement every SharePoint feature
Default access is “read only” for all – apply additional “read”
security only as needed – or you will lose the knowledge
management benefits of SharePoint
Plan a Launch Strategy
Communications – persistent
Training – don’t underestimate the training
requirements for the SharePoint “paradigm shift;” “bite
sized chunks”
Launch and Content Conversion – clean first!
User Support – make sure users know who they can call
Incentives and Rewards – make it fun!
Measurement – for funding and feedback
Three Elements of Information Architecture
Site Architecture – the structure of the portal and the pages
within the portal. This defines how users will navigate through
the portal.
Page Layout – the position of web parts on each page. The
layout provides consistency to help users quickly find what they
need.
Metadata Architecture – the structure of the content within the
portal. This helps improve the user experience when they are
searching for information.
Your IA needs to support a critical user objective:
FINDABILITY!
A good information architecture helps users find content in three
critical scenarios …
I know it exists and I know where it is
In this scenario, the user typically navigates to the site or searches
using the exact name of the document.
I know it exists, but I don’t know where it is
This is a “search” scenario.
I don’t know if it exists
This is definitely search.
… and is designed to align with how your users think
As you define your information architecture,
ask yourself:
Does the design of the site make it easy for users
to think in the order and detail they want?
Does it adequately reflect everything that’s
important to them?
Have you asked?
Does it present information in a context which
shapes their thinking in ways that help them
appreciate:
Your mission and vision?
Your competitive strengths?
Your unique value proposition?
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Site Architecture | Navigation Across the Site
Think about how content can be separated into major groups,
based on key business processes, major projects, key business
roles or organizational business units.
The Site Architecture should allow people to quickly find the
information they need to do their jobs, effectively improving
operational efficiency.
It should also help people place the context of their work in the
overall context of the organization, enabling them to gain an
understanding of what is available on the portal as a whole,
even if they primarily focus on their own particular space.
Planning Your Site Architecture
Gather together three to five representative stakeholders to
brainstorm key content areas.
Write down the major content categories that users will expect
to find on your site.
If you don’t have access to actual site users, you may have to
imagine what users will find on your site. If this is the case,
consider creating user “personas” and approaching your site
architecture design from the perspective of each persona.
Use your stakeholder team and interview results to document
major content areas on sticky notes and then group the sticky
notes into related groups. These related groups will form the
starting point for your site’s main navigation.
As you iterate through the site architecture process, take out
duplicate items, combine similar items, and look for
opportunities to create primary and secondary or subgroupings where appropriate.
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Navigation Best Practices
Succinct labels: no more than three words each
Terms should be straightforward, consistent, and convey the
desired tone for your solution.
Try not to make up words for your navigation – use terms that
users will understand.
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Page Architecture | Navigation on the Page
Important considerations for your page architecture:
Consistency
Speed
Scrolling
Important Content in the Upper Left
Images
Web Parts
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Page Layout Best Practices
Consistency
Following the standard design for all pages on the portal ensures
that users can navigate around the intranet without getting
surprised by changing design standards.
Unless there is a valid business reason for moving a particular web
part to another location on your page, try to leave it where it is.
Speed
Make sure that users can get information as fast as possible.
For example, does the information or placeholder you are adding
improve the ability for users to quickly find what they are looking
for or get in the way? Does the dancing bunny add or distract?
Page Layout Best Practices
Scrolling
Does the page layout require that users scroll up or down or left to
right to find important information? Vertical scrolling is OK,
horizontal is not.
Design your page to fit a standard screen size and then make sure
that users do not have to scroll to find the most important
information.
Scrolling should never be tolerated for critical information.
Important, Frequently Updated Content in the Upper Left
Put your most important content towards the top left hand part of
the page. This is where readers will “land” visually when they get to
your page.
If the most important information is in this location, you have a
better chance at capturing your user’s attention than if the
information is buried somewhere else on the page.
Scrolling “Fun Facts”
Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information
above the fold. When they scroll, they allocate only 20% of
their attention below the fold.
Users will scroll, but they need to believe that there is valuable
information below the fold.
Scrolling is better than paging for long articles.
Users will often dwell at the very bottom of the page when they
are scrolling to the bottom of a page so you may get some
extra eyeballs if you put something interesting at the end.
People spend more than twice as much time looking at the left
side of the page as they do on the right.
For more information, check out:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-attention.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/horizontal-attention.html
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Page Layout Best Practices
Images
Excellent way to add interest to your site – when used
appropriately.
Size for the available “screen real estate.”
Consider “screen paint” time, especially for remote users – use
resolution designed for the web, not a photo album
Make sure they are relevant and add value to the site.
Page Layout Best Practices
Web Parts
Consider whether or not you need a web part for each site element.
Definitely use web parts for frequently accessed or changing
content.
Make sure the important web parts are “above the fold.”
Target web parts using Audiences
Consider “clickable images” as an alternative to web parts
Metadata Architecture
Metadata - the attributes that you will use to classify and
organize your content the way a librarian organizes content in a
library.
Why do you need to think about metadata?
Metadata makes it easier for users to find content
Metadata can also provide context for content, helping users to
quickly identify whether a document or other asset will be helpful –
without having to examine the content of the document in detail.
Metadata can provide a better organizational framework for
document classification than folders
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Three SharePoint 2010 Metadata Elements
Content Type
Settings that define a particular type of information, such as a
project plan or financial report.
SharePoint 2010 allows you to define Content Types across your
entire SharePoint farm and share content types across multiple site
collections.
Columns
“Properties” or attributes of a particular type of content.
Columns can be defined across the entire portal (Site Columns) or
for an individual site or site collection and across your entire farm
or one or more site collections.
Columns can also be defined inside a particular list (List Columns).
As a best practice, you should define Columns at the highest
possible level so they can be shared.
Managed Metadata
New type of metadata for both Content Types and Columns.
Managed Metadata is just that – metadata that is controlled and
managed centrally.
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Content Types
Content Types help define and find specific types of information
consistently
Content Types are organized in a hierarchy that allows one
Content Type to inherit characteristics from another Content
Type in parent-child relationship.
Content Types can include:
Metadata (Columns): You can associate columns to a Content Type.
Document Template: You can assign one unique document
template to each Content Type.
Custom “Forms”: Specific New, Edit, and Display forms can be
defined to use with a Content Type.
Workflows: A workflow can be associated with a particular Content
Type.
Information Management Policies: You can associate policies with a
Content Type to manage characteristics such as retention period.
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Content Type Considerations
Does this type of content have unique requirements based on
the Content Type elements listed above?
Should this Content Type be available across the entire
enterprise or in one site collection or one site?
Would a user want to search for this type of content uniquely?
Many users find that having too many unique content types
creates more confusion than value. Try to keep the number to
less than 10 to 15 if you can. A smaller number of Content
Types is probably better, especially for document repositories.
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Columns
Columns are the specific authoritative fields or attributes that
are used to “tag” SharePoint items.
Columns can be defined at the site collection or site level and
can be inherited by “child” sites or defined locally in a library or
list.
If you are not using Managed Metadata to share values for
columns, you should still consider creating all Columns as Site
Columns at the top site in a site collection. Managing columns
centrally allows you to automatically propagate new values to any
library or list that uses that Site Column.
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Column Best Practices
Identify universal metadata applied to all content assets
For example: Records Retention Code
Limit the number of Required columns in Content Types and Lists
Follow the basic principles of good data design. Make sure that:
Each metadata property is unique and that each property is really necessary
to describe the content.
List values represent a single category of knowledge. For example a column
defining “color” might include values such as red, blue, and green, but not
an entry such as plaid. Instead, define a second category for “pattern” to
present values such as stripes, polka-dots and plaid.
The list of values for an attribute is complete - so that users are not forced
to pick an inaccurate field.
Choice values in a drop down list are mutually exclusive.
Required columns appear “above the fold” for data entry if they do not have
a default value.
Default values are entered judiciously. Many users accept default values
without reading them. This unconscious choice can skew filtering and search
results.
The use of “fill in” fields in list choices is avoided where possible.
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Column Best Practices, continued
Use descriptive, meaningful labels.
Use singular nouns for Column names.
Use a logical order in metadata lists – for the most part, should
sort lists in alphabetical order. If you need to sequence or sort
lists using another sort order, you can insert a number in front
of a text term. For example: 1-Design, 2-Development, 3Train, 4-Deploy.
Avoid using None, N/A or Other as metadata values if possible.
Consider using a Document Description in document libraries
(and encourage users to complete it).
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Managed Metadata | A new feature that users will love
Managed Metadata is a hierarchical group of
enterprise-wide or centrally managed terms
that can be used for Columns in Content
Types or Lists and Libraries.
When will you use managed metadata?
When there is a natural hierarchy to your
metadata
When you need to control a shared list across
multiple site collections
With Managed Metadata, you can control
which elements of the hierarchy are available
for tagging.
Your controlled list is available for both
authoritative and “social” tagging.
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Managed Metadata | A new feature that adds complexity
SharePoint 2010 uses three terms to refer to managed
metadata:
Managed terms: Think of managed terms as the controlled
vocabulary that you will use to assign metadata to content across
your solution. Not all metadata values need to be stored and
managed as a managed term. Good candidates for managed terms
are metadata that have valid values that can or should be
organized hierarchically, metadata that is likely to be used in
multiple lists and libraries across your solution, or metadata for
which there is a restricted list of values from which users can
select.
Managed keywords: Managed keywords are words or phrases that
have been added by a user to SharePoint 2010 items – either
formally in a managed term store or informally as “social tags.”
While managed terms can be organized hierarchically, managed
keywords are all stored in flat term set called the Keyword Set.
Term store: The term store is the database that is used to store
both managed terms and managed keywords.
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Managed whatever – what’s the point?
In SharePoint 2010, there are three ways an attribute can be
assigned to content:
When a content contributor or editor selects or adds a value in a
column defined by the content designer. This is a form of
authoritative metadata – it is assigned by the content
contributor in a structured field.
When a content consumer assigns a “social” tag to a document. A
social tag can be any value entered by the user. Since any user can
add social metadata, these “tags” (or keywords) are not
considered authoritative, but they can be used to filter content in
search results.
When a content editor adds a Managed Keyword. Managed
Keywords are authoritative tags because they are added by users
with content editing privileges but the source of their values
includes both the managed terms for the site as well as the social
data values used by other content contributors and “visitors.” You
can think of Managed Keywords as social tags assigned by a
content editor.
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Lessons Learned | Besides findability, what else makes a site users
love?
Personalization
Target content based on my role
Let me choose to build a page with my own content (so I don’t
have to navigate every time)
Language in My Terms
Don’t invent terms – use words users will recognize
Navigation that makes sense
About Me
Some organizations are uncomfortable with too much personal
content on my sites but people look for connections with their
colleagues
“Privacy” norms are changing – at least start the conversation
Summary Descriptions in Lists
Brief descriptions of documents
Number of minutes for a video
Allow users to sort and filter by attributes
Lessons Learned | Besides findability, what else makes a site users
love?
Sites Tailored for Mobile Use
Featured Areas for New Employees
Frequently Updated Content
Color Coding in Lists and Dashboards
Training
Designers who Usability Test Their Sites
Lessons Learned: Things Users Don’t Love
Animated .gif files – cute the first time or maybe for 3 seconds.
Annoying after that. Flash is better but use it sparingly and
when it adds value or interest, not just because you know how.
Discussion Boards – sometimes these work and sometimes
they don’t. If you want it to work, you MUST have a moderator
who makes sure questions get responses.
Images that take forever to load
Wasted real estate
Content that never gets updated – even when it’s no longer
valid
Resources
Jakob Neilsen’s “Alert Box” Weekly Newsletter:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/subscribe.html
This newsletter is not just about SharePoint – it’s about usability.
Everyone in IT who is responsible for designing end user solutions
should review Neilsen’s bi-weekly newsletter. You will find
something you can use in every issue.
http://www.wssdemo.com (Ian Morrish)
http://pathtosharepoint.wordpress.com (Christophe Humbert)
http://www.pathtosharepoint.com/default.aspx
Microsoft SharePoint Team blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint
End User SharePoint Site:
http://www.endusersharepoint.com
Microsoft Help and How To Site: http://office.microsoft.com/enus/sharepointserver/FX101211721033.aspx