Silber-Partner: Veranstalter:

Creating a Great User Experience in SharePoint

Marc D AndersonSharePoint MVP

Co-Founder & PresidentSympraxis Consulting LLC

Co-Founder and President of Sympraxis Consulting LLC, located in the Boston suburb of Newton, MA, USA. Sympraxis focuses on enabling collaboration throughout the enterprise using the SharePoint application platform.

Over 30 years of experience in technology professional services and software development. Over a wide-ranging career in consulting as well as line manager positions, Marc has proven himself as a problem solver and leader who can solve difficult technology problems for organizations across a wide variety of industries and organization sizes.

Author of SPServicesAwarded Microsoft MVP for SharePoint Server 2011-2016

Who Is Marc?

Building solutions in SharePoint isn’t simply about getting the functionality right based on the business requirements.

Developers and designers must think about the entire user experience. How should the user feel when they use this piece of functionality? Will they see it as saving them work or creating new work? How will it compare to what they see on the consumer Web?

We’ll look at good and bad examples from SharePoint itself, as well as specific customizations.

Session Overview

The Problem

“Dissatisfaction is centered on several areas, including adoption challenges, a dislike for the SharePoint user experience, a preference for other tools like email and skepticism over its business value.”

“Business management’s dissatisfaction with SharePoint and perception of its value is hurt by uninspired user experiences.

Forrester Report on SharePoint Adoption

Microsoft SharePoint faces a challenging future: Forrester | PCWorldhttp://www.pcworld.com/article/2027391/microsoft-sharepoint-faces-a-challenging-future-forrester.htmlSharePoint Adoption Faces Three Barriers: Mobile, Social, Cloudhttp://www.slideshare.net/johnrrymer/share-point-survey-2012-slideshare

Use SharePoint as an out-of-box application whenever possible - We designed the new SharePoint UI to be clean, simple and fast and work great out-of-box. We encourage you not to modify it which could add complexity, performance and upgradeability and to focus your energy on working with users and groups to understand how to use SharePoint to improve productivity and collaboration and identifying and promoting best practices in your organization.

What’s the Solution? SharePoint

Microsoft Doesn't Advise You Customize SharePoint 2013http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/microsoft-doesnt-advise-you-customize-sharepoint-2013-016608.php

User experience (UX or UE) involves a person's emotions about using a particular

product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, affective,

meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership.

What Is “User Experience”?

How does the user feel when they are finished with using

SharePoint?“User experience” from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience

The consumer Web is both a source of inspiration and an anathema for enterprise developers

Our users expect no less than what they see on Facebook, Dropbox, Google, etc.

It’s an expectations problem

Consumer Web

Image from The Conversation Prism http://www.theconversationprism.com/

How Can We Succeed?

Form vs. FunctionForm Function

Typically the domain of Designers, Marketing

folks

Typically the domain of

Developers, IT folks

RealityIt has to be both:“function requires

form” The Form v Function Ratio by Dan Antion http://www.aiim.org/community/blogs/expert/The-Form-v-Function-Ratio

A sound Information Architecture provides: Consistency Simpler maintenance One version of the truth

Use wisely: Content Types Managed metadata List-based Site Columns

Information Architecture

Image from “Explain IA Poster” http://userallusion.com/blog/2010/10/explain-ia-poster/

Don’t think about what SharePoint does or how it does it. Think about what your users want.

Too many developers eschew SharePoint as a collaboration tool. Use what you build.

If it’s too slow or cumbersome to you, guess what? It’s worse for your users.

Be the User

Sit with your users Listen to what they are asking for Repeat what they want Iterate, iterate, iterate Lather, rinse, repeat – It’s never “done” Agile with a small “a” – roll with the punches

Collaborative Development

Don’t expect your users to understand all functionality

Training can’t cover everything –demonstrate patterns

Be an internal consultant “How can I help you to solve your

requirements?”

Consultative Services

Questions to ask: Can a relatively inexperienced

technophobe make sense of this? Do we feel like people will need

training? Why? How often will they use it? Is it visually appealing? Is it “accessible”?

Use the “Mom Test”

Create a frictionless experience

Prefill everything you can based on context

Add some coolness Remember the power of

good IA

Form, Forms, Forms

Your end users don’t care about your budget

Figure out how to help them Look for quick wins – they can

help fund the big changes Decide if the workloads SharePoint

supports are important enough Find executive support

Don’t Talk About Budget (Too Much)

Speed Matters

Two Seconds

Boston Globe, February 02, 2013: Instant gratification is making us perpetually impatient ow.ly/i8Pth

Ramesh Sitaraman, a computer science professor at UMass Amherst, examined the viewing habits of 6.7 million Internet users in a study released in 2012. How long were subjects willing to be patient?

Do you think that’s gotten any longer?

Views should show the amount of information required to make decisions, no more

Carefully balance server side and client side code

Large images can kill the UX

Size Matters

Whether you aim at mobile or now, you must have a mobile strategy

Understand your population

Mobile First?

Images courtesy: Method IT, TechNet

Know your user base Browsers

Brands Versions

Screens Size Resolution Shape

Bandwidth Available RAM

Lowest Common Denominator

Image from NetMarketShare – timeframe = Q3 2015http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0&qptimeframe=Q

“It works on my machine” doesn’t

cut it.

If users have to scroll every time they land on a page, you’ve put things in the wrong place

Eyes scan from upper left to lower right, much as a TV “paints” the screen

Mind the Fold

Image 2: F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/

Decide on your design aesthetic Few dense pages vs. many sparse

pages Graphics vs. text Color vs. monochrome

Pet Peeve: Executive images or senseless banners

Use Real Estate Wisely

Please, please, please NEVER: “Contact your administrator”

Correlation IDs – Good idea, horrible execution, especially for SharePoint Online

Tell the user: What happened? What did I do to make it

happen? How can I fix it?

Error Messages

Remove the developer from the equation

List-Based Settings vs. Property bags

Give users control – it’s their system

Focus on important development work

Relinquish Control

Search is about finding, not searching Search is not just a search box Requires regular care and feeding Use search to drive effects

Seek and Ye Shall Find…

Consistency to a fault - Don’t be constrained by what SharePoint gives you

Yet, you’ve bought a box, don’t stray too far out of it

Name it – it’s not SharePoint Visual cues – not just text

Additional Thoughts and Contradictions

It always comes back to “It Depends”

Remember…

Form vs. FunctionForm Function

Typically the domain of Designers, Marketing

folks

Typically the domain of

Developers, IT folks

RealityIt has to be both:“function requires

form” The Form v Function Ratio by Dan Antion http://www.aiim.org/community/blogs/expert/The-Form-v-Function-Ratio

FRAGEN?

Ich freue mich auf Ihr Feedback!

Silber-Partner: Veranstalter:

Vielen Dank!Marc D Anderson

Contact InformationEmail marc.anderson@sympraxisconsulting.

comTwitter @sympmarcBlog http://sympmarc.com

SPServices http://spservices.codeplex.comSPXSLT http://spxslt.codeplex.comBooks http://sympmarc.com/books

The Middle Tier Manifesto

http://bit.ly/middletier