*update to post*
This post contained images that were not optimized for the web due to export error.
Please check out SharePoint Saturday Columbus Photos here in SmugMug
As I was researching SharePoint 2010 Design for our new book, Beginning SharePoint Designer 2010 (wrox), I collected several links to good resources. I hope you find them as helpful as I did. I tried to bucket them in order of design/dev cycle. Why? Probably because I’m an Information Architect at heart. No reason really.
The most important source of information is the SDK. I can’t stress that enough. There is so much more documentation with this release than there was with 2007. However, we are all in the habit of looking to each other for information first.
Researching the SDK and walking through the Development classes, even if you aren’t a developer. is an important step in understanding the complex relationships between the objects in SharePoint and ASP.NET.
I will repost a full set of resource links once I finish writing for the book.
SharePoint 2010 requires a better understanding of CSS than you needed in SharePoint 2007. You really should be able to plan your css. If you can use the box model on purpose. If you know how to clear a float. If you understand a stacking index, you are okay. If you don’t, practice on plain old HTML first. Build your own HTML from scratch and style it. Draw a design and build it from scratch Plan it.
CSS Sticky Footer – You may find yourself struggling to get your footer to stay at the bottom of your page. If you really want this to be a part of your site, test the layout and structure all alone to troubleshoot. Test with and without content on as many site templates as possible. CSS Sticky Footer, CSS Sticky Footer II, CSS Sticky Footer III
Paul presented the first UX design session I attended. His British accent and dry humor makes this session worth the investment of your time.
Tons of interesting scienc-y insight into why its so important to consider the structure of the language used to communicate on the web. I didn’t see this one in person but watched it and found it fascinating.
There is quite a bit of insight in this session.
I always enjoy sessions from one of the Microsoft Research Team. Shelley has a great grasp on social media.. There’s new ways for services organizations to reach their customers and clients. Users are responsive… but wary at times. They say that instant feedback and customer service is caring… but creepy.
…Drawing insights from fields like behavioral economics and evolutionary psychology to explore how embracing politics and understanding human nature makes our designs better, our projects smoother and our lives …
This was one of the most talked about sessions they had there.
Nick’s presentations are always great. He creates a screens cast so his presentations are very valuable.
Luke is incredibly gifted at communicating. I missed his session to see Bill Buxton speak. Luke tweeted that he understood why I missed his session.
This man is amazing. He is my leader. Listen to his thoughts on design.
Fantastic presentation. I listened to this one three times on my iPod. It’s chock full of information and best practices.
Content? You mean that stuff that replaces Lorem Ipsum at the “end” of a project, just before the launch date? Yes, content. I don’t know about you, but I go to the web for relevant, credible content. Make sure you treat yours right. Learn best practices from Tiffani for giving your content some TLC.
I’m heading back to Washington DC to present at SharePoint Saturday on May 15th, 2010. My session is about “Managing Design in a SharePoint Project.” Although it isn’t the most interesting title, and it doesn’t once mention the word “crap”, it’s chock full of delicious morsels of experience that I want to share. The purpose of the session was to offer you answers to common questions that arise when discussing “SharePoint Branding”. There is more to it than implementing Master Pages. Do you want to know more?
Just for fun, I interviewed myself for the session.
A. That’s a good question, Marcy. As I moved from a SharePoint Designer newbie to where I am today, I remember wishing that someone would explain the process. I could find articles on rounded corners and breadcrumbs. But what about the process?? (by the way Erik Swenson, EMC, eventually did cover this).
The more I learned, the more I knew I didn’t know. There were times that I felt like my knowledge gap was insurmountable, but I generally prevailed and enjoyed trying new approaches.. Like many, I earned my stripes through mistakes and subsequent rework. I survived with a bruised ego and more determination to find the answers. I started asking around and after a few years, I had a lot of answers. So I hope that this collection of answers to common questions sounds enticing to you.
A. I answer broad and high-level topics that cover multiple disciplines. Most are process related. I try to give as many examples as I can. Developers, designers, architects, and anyone on the project team will find this helpful.
I love sharing my stories. I know that people feel less alone if they aren’t the only one that has been through a trauma. 
But I have to admit, my favorite part of the session is when we ALL AGREE TO STOP CALLING IT “BRANDING”. It’s a high hope, but I believe that one day we will; It’s part of the problem.
A. At the end of the session, I’ll spend about 10 minutes answering your specific questions. If you would like to submit prior to the event, I’ll try to include your question.
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4/23/09 – SharePoint Saturday Update:
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Prologue: Aligning Thoughts and Ideas
A prologue (Greek prologos), or prolog, is a preface to the story. It sets up the story, giving background details and other miscellaneous information.
This is the prologue for a series of articles on User Experience Design (UED) in SharePoint. The series is intended to improve the success of your SharePoint implementation through a better understanding of User Experience Design.
These articles are relevant to power users, designers, information architects, business analysts, project managers and anyone passionate about SharePoint.
I began my love affair with SharePoint in 2005 when I was working at a global medical device manufacturer. I inherited many manual data management processes that seemed designed to elicit human error with their convoluted schemas and irrational schedules. Unfortunately, many of the "human errors" were mine and even worse, highly visible. I lost confidence in my abilities and actually started feeling depressed. I dreaded going to work.
My boss knew of my background in web and graphic design and asked me to build a site to pilot SharePoint 2003. The site would manage our department file-shares, processes and key documents. I jumped at the chance. This was my opportunity to normalize this data and automate the system, almost completely eliminating human error, and putting me in the corporate good graces. It was personal to succeed in this endeavor. My ego depended on it.
The key objectives of the site set the context. The site should be intuitive so that it could be used with minimal training. Because we were in the middle of an FDA audit it was critical that the migrated content was credible and quickly accessed to support FDA requests for information. The site design also had to be universally understood across departments and continents.
The audience was comprised of over 2000 project managers, chemists, scientists, researchers and executives that worked on several continents.
The success of the site (and indirectly, my success) would be measured by user adoption and the ability to find content quickly. How was I to make a group of 2000 minimally-trained users adopt a site? The answer was clearly dependent on design. It must be designed an architected well.
We built a solution based on User Experience Design (UXD) principles and methods. A thorough understanding of user needs, site context and content drove the site map, taxonomy, interactions and visual design. The site was a success, our processes were automated, user adoption was high and so were my spirits.
SharePoint was my hero.
Over the last five years, I’ve moved into SharePoint consulting and continue to follow the thought leaders in various User Experience (UX) discipline, incorporating and linking their ideas into each SharePoint implementation.
There is more than enough information available regarding User Experience Design (UXD) for the Regular Web Design World (RWDW), however there is a tremendous scarcity of this content as it applies to SharePoint. One of the major reasons for this is that originally, SharePoint was focused on collaboration. The challenges of working with an immature product combined with the design customization limitations made it very difficult to focus on User Experience (UX). SharePoint 2007 dramatically changed this and we finally had the platform to incorporate UXD.
As SharePoint has matured into a robust platform offering rich user interface (UI) features and true development capabilities, there is a need to standardize the User Experience (UX) approach in SharePoint.
The forthcoming series of articles define the User Experience (UX) disciplines, roles and responsibilities, and helpful approaches as they relate to SharePoint. These articles will focus heavily on areas that I know best: usability, visual design and the psychology behind them. As I continue to develop these ideas into articles and supporting visuals, I welcome your input and feedback.
My SharePoint Saturday DC Presentation is available. The SharePoint Saturday DC was a success overall. Had a few problems with my demo so I wanted to make sure that the presentation was reworked to include content covered in the demo. This is now available to you on Slideshare (http://slideshare.net/marcykellar )as well as here, my lonely rarely updated blog.
Overview – Branding alone cannot support the user experience in SharePoint. The successful redesign of an existing SharePoint site is dependent on multiple factors that are often overlooked.
This session was designed for Architects, Designers, and IT Pros and includes the following:
-Common Causes of Branding Problems in SharePoint
-Demonstration of “crappy content” and impact on branding
Overview of the elements of User Experience (UX)
-Methods to improve user experience and overall look and feel
To Download the sharepoint spider mentioned in this presentation- paste this link in your address bar: http://www.sharepointuserexperience.com/downloads/SharePoint_Spider_1.5.zip
I’m presenting at SharePoint Saturday DC on December 5th. My Topic? ”Why Branding Won’t Fix Crappy Content: Real World UX & IA Discussion”. If you have an example (or horror story) about “crappy content” that vexed your branding, please submit it here and I may use it to build my demo. The demo will be made available to the community as the mother of all testing sites.
Note: Your comments will remain anonymous if requested.
Thanks!
Sometimes I run across a site that looks like it might be SharePoint. A quick trick I have to determine if it is running on MOSS is to add the following after the root url:
/Style%20Libary/XSL%20Style%20Sheets/Itemstyle.xsl
If you get a 404 error, it isn’t a SharePoint Publishing site.
Test it out on these known SharePoint sites:
http://www.eyecarevouchers.co.uk/Style%20Library/XSL%20Style%20Sheets/itemstyle.xsl
http://www.gtlic.com/Style%20Library/XSL%20Style%20Sheets/itemstyle.xsl
Best Practices - The Seven Most Important Success Factors http://slidesha.re/97bVn2 #sharePOint > @rharbridge - I love it! Well done! 7 Quick CSS Enhancements for Better User Experience (via my6sense) http://tinyurl.com/243bkqk The art of interviewing your client - http://bit.ly/cnodDp (via @DesignerDepot) (via my6sense) http://tinyurl.com/3yzex7b How do colors affect purchases? http://bit.ly/9hshQd #webdesign #design #infographic #marketing
