Building solutions in SharePoint isn’t simply about getting the functionality right based on the business requirements. Developers must think about the entire user experience (UX), which goes far beyond the technical aspects of the solution. It’s no longer good enough to meet the specifications. We must exceed them in terms of usability. This takes many developers out of their comfort zones and into the messy world of end users.In this interactive session, we’ll discuss questions like: How should the user feel when they use this piece of functionality? Will they perceive that this functionality saves them work or creates new work? How will the functionality compare to what they see on the consumer Web? How can we use technologies which haven’t historically been considered mainstream SharePoint developer tools (like jQuery and CSS) to make SharePoint feel more like the sites people love? We’ll look at good and bad examples from SharePoint itself as well as specific customizations.

3. 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 SPServices
Awarded Microsoft MVP for SharePoint Server 2011-2016

4.  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.
SharePoint
Microsoft Doesn't Advise You Customize SharePoint 2013
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/microsoft-doesnt-advise-you-customize-sharepoint-2013-016608.php

5. 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.
How does the user feel when they are
finished with using SharePoint?
“User experience” from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience

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

8.  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
Image from The Conversation Prism http://www.theconversationprism.com/

9.  A sound Information
Architecture provides:
 Consistency
 Simpler maintenance
 One version of the truth
 Use wisely:
 Content Types
 Managed metadata
 List-based Site Columns
Image from “Explain IA Poster” http://userallusion.com/blog/2010/10/explain-ia-poster/

10.  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.

11.  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

12.  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?”

13.  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”?

14.  Create a frictionless experience
 Prefill everything you can based
on context
 Add some coolness
 Remember the power of good IA

15.  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

16. •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?

17.  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

18.  Whether you aim at mobile or
now, you must have a mobile
strategy
 Understand your population
Images courtesy: Method IT, TechNet

19.  Know your user base
 Browsers
 Brands
 Versions
 Screens
 Size
 Resolution
 Shape
 Bandwidth
 Available RAM
Image from NetMarketShare – timeframe = Q3 2015
http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0&qptimeframe=Q
“It works on my machine”
doesn’t cut it.

20.  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
Image 2: F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/

21.  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

22.  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?

23.  Remove the developer from the equation
 List-Based Settings vs. Property bags
 Give users control – it’s their system
 Focus on important development work

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

25.  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
It always comes back to “It Depends”

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

28. H3Z8

29. Email marc.anderson@sympraxisconsulting.com
Twitter @sympmarc
Blog http://sympmarc.com
SPServices http://spservices.codeplex.com
SPXSLT http://spxslt.codeplex.com
Books http://sympmarc.com/books
The Middle Tier Manifesto http://bit.ly/middletier