Presented at SPTechCon D.C. Review of information Architecture Tips and content organization in SharePoint and Office365

1. Content Management & Page Structures in SharePoint
By: D’arce Hess SPTechCon – Washington D.C. 2017

2. Where we came from
Classic vs Modern Architectures
IA Building Blocks
Providing Consistency
IA Meets UI/UX
Agenda

3. Introductions
D’arce Hess, MVP
President | DH Consulting LLC
dhess@dhconsulting.me
https://darcehess.com
@darcehess
https://www.linkedin.com/in/darcehess

4. Classic SharePoint

5. Where we came from
2013
• Custom Master Pages
• Composed Looks
• Display Templates
• Custom Page Layouts
• jslink
• Image Renditions
2010
• Sandbox Solutions
• Color Picker Theming
• Custom Master Pages
• Custom Page Layouts
• FAST Search
• Deep IA Structures
2007
• Full Trust Code
Solutions
• Limited theming
capabilities
• Custom Master Pages
• Custom Page Layouts
Office365
• Modern Experiences
• Delve
• Personalized Search
• SharePoint Framework
• New Web Parts
• No more clunky ribbon
• No Subsites
• Mobile Friendly
• SharePoint App

6. Classic Architectures
• One high-level site collection
• Multiple sub sites
• Lists
• Libraries
• Folders
• Documents
• Content Types
• Metadata

7. Modern SharePoint

8. The World is Flat
• Root Site is a Modern Team Site
• Everything is a Site Collection
• Easier for permissions structures
• News and events will roll up to Hub Site

9. IA Building Blocks

10. What kind of content do you have?
• Text
• Images
• Videos
• Documents
• Lists
• Forms
• Social content
• Surveys

11. SharePoint is not the only answer
Technology cannot be the only answer.
SharePoint can house all of your content, but
the structure and organization is up to you.
• What types of documents do you want to
store?
• What information about those documents
should be stored (metadata)?
• Do you need images, or video?
• Who will be accessing the different types
of content?

12. How will your users be using SharePoint?
• Document Storage
• Intranet
• Communication
• Collaboration/Teamwork
• Social

13. Logical containers with a unique name used to store a
collection of sub sites..
Site Collections
Sites are containers which store libraries and lists. Users
often navigate directly to a site and are redirected to its
homepage.
Sites/Subsites (Classic)
Located within sites, libraries store items that are ‘files’.
Examples include Site Pages, Images, Videos, Documents.
These are all stored in libraries.
Libraries
Similar to libraries except every item is separate similar to
how and separate line item in Excel works.
Lists
A container term that can apply specific pre-defined
metadata to information (lists, libraries, pages) within
SharePoint
Content Types
The properties that are applied to items inside libraries or
lists
Metadata
Your Building Blocks

14. Purpose of an Architecture
An architecture provides the foundation for
your governance plans to be implemented
and scalable in the organization.

15. Create Logical and Realistic Structures
Human Resources
Site Collection (Hub Site)
Human Resources EMEA
Site Collection
Human Resources APAC
Site Collection
Human Resources
Americas
Site Collection
Lists
Document Libraries
Images
News
Events
Site Pages
Lists
Document Libraries
Images
News
Events
Site Pages
Lists
Document Libraries
Images
News
Events
Site Pages

16. IA meets User Experience

17. Create Logical and Realistic Structures
• Structure content with a purpose
• What is the story you want to tell?
• Who is your Audience?
• Can a process be simplified using
metadata?
• Can you use metadata to surface content
stored in lists to prevent separate pages
for consistent content?

18. Two Column Layouts provide a great canvas for
providing focus on specific content and allowing
the sidebar to be used as a secondary focus. This
layout offers a large variety of uses for:
• Department Home Pages
• Landing Pages
• Intranet Landing Pages
• Content Pages
Banner with Lg. Left Sm. Right Modern Classic

19. Single Column Layouts include a Left
Navigation to help users get to categories
of content. This layout offers a large
variety of uses for:
• Article content pages
• News
• Single Topic Content
Single Column Modern Classic

20. The Three Column has the most variety of
uses. This layout offers a large variety of
uses for:
• Telling a process story i.e. Past, Present,
Future
Three Column Modern Classic

21. Use content types to help users implement the
content that is right for the layout versus
placing multiple web part zones on a page
and leaving too much for the user to have to
decide on.
Create with Content Types Classic

22. The Four Rules for Links
Color
Don’t use blue or purple for
text colors unless it’s a link
Underline
Don’t underline text unless it
is a link
Click Here
“Click Here” requires users to
read before and after to
understand what they are
clicking
Number
Keep number of links short or
find grouping patterns to
break up content

23. Provide Consistency

24. Who do I want to Communicate With?

25. Who is the Audience?

26. Internal or External Communication?

27. When to use what and why
Create guidance site/pages to inform
users and help lead them to make better
decisions and also enforce the governance
in your organization
SharePoint/Office 365 Governance Questions
http://tiny.cc/SharePointGovQuestions
When to Use What in Office 365
http://whentousewhat.com

28. The Z-Layout is a great way to start just about any
website or intranet project because it addresses the
core requirements for any effective site:
• branding
• hierarchy
• structure
• call to action.
Users don’t “read” content, they scan content
How do people read?

29. Use content in a consistent manner
• Should webparts be placed
consistently on the page.
• In a right column, determine
what should be most important.
• Know what your users are
coming to your site to obtain

30. Use Color to note security designation
Should there be a different color
theme for sites that allow for external
access and sharing vs. internal?
Provide visual indicators to help users

31. Quick Tips
Users will not fill out 30 fields. Don’t make
everything required. Only ask for what you
need.
Limit Options
Use Content Query or Highlighted Content
Webparts to help surface relevant content.
Have Search work for you
Try to limit the number and depth that you
create.
Subsites (classic only)
Make the terminology obvious
Metadata

32. • Please thank our sponsors and
staff. Without them, this event
would not be possible.
• Please fill out your evaluations. We
want to know what we can do
better.
D’arce Hess, MVP
President | DH Consulting LLC
dhess@dhconsulting.me
https://darcehess.com
@darcehess
https://www.linkedin.com/in/darcehess