Create Engaging Branded SharePoint Portals and Plan for Content

SharePointintersection
Create Engaging Branding SharePoint Portals
and Plan for Content
Cathy Dew
catpaint1@live.com

Speaker Bio

 Cathy Dew


Consultant at Planet Technologies



Graphic Designer, Consultant and SharePoint MVP



Over 6 years of SharePoint
branding experience



Author: SharePoint 2010: Six in One



catpaint1 on Twitter

2

© DEVintersection. All rights reserved.
http://www.DEVintersection.com

Introduction
 Gather Requirements
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What kind of site

Scenario – CatDragged In Corporation
Organize the Site
Determine Content Needs
Design your Site
Develop
Engage Users

3


Gather Requirements

Start at the Beginning

What is the Purpose?
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Public Facing
Extranet
Intranet – Informational Only
Intranet – Informational and Collaboration
Intranet – Collaboration Only
Intranet with Social and MySites Plus everything else

5


Asking the Questions

 Can be the biggest challenge
 Example Questions:


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What is the one thing you want users to know when they go to your
site?
What sites do you like?
What sites don’t you like?

6


Poll Questions
 Do you currently have an intranet?
 Do you visit the homepage of your intranet?
 Do you participate in any Social Networks?

7


Scenario – CatDragged In Corp
CatDragged In

 Cat Supply Manufacturer that needs to
manage their business documents and
communicate effectively with their employees.
 They currently have a SharePoint 2007 intranet that is poorly managed and
often has very stale content.

8


 The Company has the following Business Units

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CatDragged In

Accounting
Administrative/Executive
Human Resources
IT
Manufacturing
Project Management Office
Quality Assurance
Research and Development
Sales and Marketing
Shipping

9


CatDragged In

 Challenges:




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How to Organize their Content
How to Engage their Users
How to Keep their Content Fresh
Geographically Divided Teams
Capture and Store Documents and Knowledge in a Centralized Location

10


Organizing, Managing, and Content

Developing the Plan

Organizing Chaos
 Determine the Site Structure



Questions of Content and Site Templates/Site Collections
Will it be Organizational, Functional or a Mix of Both

12


Site Map
 CatDragged In decided to go in an Organizational Site Map with a few extra
bonus Sites that fall outside a Department
 Questions to ask:




How do your users typically find information?
How do your users typically work, who do they work with on a daily basis?

13


CatDragged In Site Map
 Mix of Collaboration and Publishing Site Templates
 Also has a combination of Organizational Based Sites and Specialty Sites
Home

Accounting

IT

Admin

PMO

Manufacturing

QA

HR

Sales and Marketing

R&D

14

Coffee Lounge

Shipping

University


Navigation Needs
 Determine if you need more than just the SharePoint Navigation

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Breadcrumb Navigation
Footer Navigation

 Ask the right questions about Navigation and make decisions based off
talking to End Users not just management
 Card Sorting can be a useful tool for determining Navigation

15


But What About the Content
 What is it that you want to put on the main pages?
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News
Announcements
FAQs
Letter from the President
HR Information
Tips and Tricks
Events

16


Who will Manage Content
 Centralized or Decentralized Management?
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IT Staff will manage all is Centralized
Departments will manage their own is Decentralized

 Advantages to Decentralized
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Content is Updated more Frequently
Content stays relevant to the time frame
Less overhead on IT Staff

 Disadvantages to Decentralized
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Must live in the same Site Collection (unless you use a 3rd Party tool)
Training must be performed for Content Owners

17


Where Does My Content Live?
 Determining the Content Locations is especially important for things like
Rollup Lists and Announcements.


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Did you create more than one Site Collection for database size purposes
or security concerns?
Do you want it in a team site, or in a section of the main intranet, typically
publishing pages?

18


What Kind of Pages will I use?
 Determine if you will be using Publishing Pages or Collaboration Sites
 Will you Use a Custom Page Layout?


Publishing Infrastructure allows for this using Design Manager or SPD
methods

 Will you be creating Custom Display Templates?
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Customize the way information is displayed in items like the Search Pages
and some WebParts and Views
Use the Design Manager, SPD or other tools to create these

19


Web Parts for Displaying Content
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Video/Media
Document Libraries
Content by Search Web Part
Content Editor
Wiki Style Pages
Calendars
Announcements
Yammer

20


Getting User Attention
 This is one of the bigger challenges when planning the User Experience
 Need that “Squirrel” moment
 Pay attention to your users demographics
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Gamification
Stock Ticker
Weather
Social

21


Time to Design the Site

Ready, Set, Go

Develop a User Experience Plan

23


Design Methods
 Wireframes are a great tool for separating Design and Function – start
with a basic SP site and customize from there

24


Design Methods
 Evaluate Your Designs for Functionality and Content – Not Design

25


Wireframe Tools
 Balsamiq

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SharePoint 2013 Team Site Template from Flucidity
http://flucidity.azurewebsites.net/2013/02/sharepoint-2013-balsamiqmock-up-template/

 Visio
 Adobe Creative Suite

26


Create a User Experience Artifact Plan
 Determine Master Page Needs
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Design Manager or Custom

Determine CSS Needs
Determine if your site will be Responsive
Browsers will you target
Web Parts will you use
Images will you need
Page Layouts if Needed

27


Determine Deployment Plan
 Solution
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Sandboxed for Office 365
Visual Studio Full Trust for On Premises

 Manual Application
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SPD
Browser

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Create Design Mockups
 At this stage you will want to create a design mockup
 Standard Web Development principles and requirements apply at this
stage
 Mockups will contain the visual elements, colors and images you
propose for the final solution

29


Things to Pay Attention To
 Pay Close Attention to:


Navigation
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Top Navigation
Quick Launch Navigation
Breadcrumbs

Ribbon
Suite Bar
Search Pages – Display Templates for Search Results Pages
Any Web Template Changes
My Sites

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Design Mockup Sample

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Create Customized Design Artifacts
 Make use of the tool you are most comfortable with to develop your
design artifacts
 SharePoint 2013 Design Manager
 Adobe Creative Suite
 SharePoint Designer 2013
 NotePad
 Visual Studio
 Plus Many More

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Branded Site

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Branded Site

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Branded Site Artifact List
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One Custom Master Page – Built in SPD – no HTML version
One Custom CSS File
Custom Images
Video Library
Corporate Announcements Library

35


Plan Adoption Activities

Understand Your Users

Always Know the Implications
 Each User Experience Decision has Implications and Ramifications in a
SharePoint Environment
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Navigation consistency
Permissions
Site Template

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User Adoption Activity Samples
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Scavenger Hunts
Rewards
Searches
Attend Susan Hanley’s User Adoption Session tomorrow morning.

38


Questions?
Don’t forget to enter your evaluation
of this session using EventBoard!

Thank you!

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