The Good, the Bad & the UglyUnderstanding Good Design Practices in SharePoint & O365 365365

SPTechCon Boston, June 27-30, 2016D’arce Hess

@darcehess

https://www.linkedin.com/in/darcehess

Darce.Hess@avepoint.com

D’arce Hess

Agenda

Overview Color Palettes Fonts Page Layout

Structures

When to use Links Navigation Summary

Overview

General Bad Design Practices• Don’t use Flash. Google and Firefox have recently disabled the flash plugin on their browsers due to a 

‘critical’ security flaw. 

• Don’t use long paragraphs of text. People browsing online have a very short attention span – they want quick answers, they most certainly aren’t going to read through large paragraphs of text.

• Don’t use 50 different colors. Yes color does brighten up our lives, but there is a limit to how much color you should use on your site.

• Don’t have background music! There is nothing more annoying than a website with background music… nothing. Besides, this is corny – you don’t want people to think you are corny right?

• Don’t clutter! Websites that are cluttered make it hard for customers to browse and find what they are looking for.

General No Nos of DesignDo use simple and clear content. Keep the content on your site limited to headings sub-headings, short paragraphs of text, bullet points and lists. The easier to digest, the better.

Do use professional, high quality photos. You want the site to be attractive with images and using large photos as a fade, decorative background can add a very nice effect. 

Do use white space! Don’t be afraid to use space to your advantage in your website – it will allow you break up all the information on your site into digestible chunks. Websites that try cram everything onto one page that fits on your screen are confusing and overwhelming.

Do use simple navigation. The site must be easy to maneuver so visitors can find what they are looking for without wasting time. This is probably the most over looked aspect of website design – what you need to be thinking is “what is the fastest way to get a visitor from the home page, to understand what we offer and send us an enquiry?”.

Choosing the right Color Palette

Color Theory

Use warm colors in your designs to reflect passion, happiness, enthusiasm, and energy.

Use cool colors in your designs to give a sense of calm or professionalism.

Reds, Oranges, Yellows

Reds help to draw a statement most often associated with passion, power, elegance

Institutions often using these color palettes:

• Fine Dining• Florists• Automotive• Chocolate Shops

Blues

Dark Blues tend to give the feeling or impression of trust, professionalism, steadfastness.

Common type of institutions using dark or navy blues in their sites:

• Financial /Banking• Airlines• Corporate • Accounting Firms• Legal

Tools for color palette creation

Paletton.comhttps://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/

SharePoint Color Palette Tool

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38182

Creates the .spcolor file that is combined to create the Composed Look

Incorporating your Brand

Understand who your target audience isKeep it Simple

Incorporating your BrandExample: Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group

Needed a central location to push news to the organization

Uses Company color palette

Personal information for each user.

Incorporating your BrandCompany Culture was a forefrontExternal News ResourcesNeeded a clean interface

Choosing your Fonts

Readability

Is this Easy for you to read?

Is this Easy for you to read?

Is this Easy for you to read?

Is this Easy for you to read?

Is this Easy for you to read?

Pairing

In very few cases will you choose to use the same font for all areas of your site. Knowing how to choose complimentary fonts will help keep your users engaged and draw focus to specific content.

Pairing is the ability to choose two complimentary fonts to use on a website, intranet or printed piece

Common Font Pairings

Anton FontOpen sans light is a great pairing for Anton

Montserrat HairlineMontserrat Light is a great pairing for Montserrat Hairline

BodoniMontserrat is a nice pairing with this font

CinzelQuattrocento is a great pairing for Cinzel

YellowtailOpen sans is a great pairing for Yellowtail

Segoe UIOpen sans light is a great pairing for Segoe UI

What is the best Font Size?

Using the correct font size can help to increase readability for your users

This is a page heading (H1)This is a secondary heading (H2)This is a tertiary heading (H3)This is a fourth heading (H4)This is going to be some text that is in a paragraph on my page

Choosing the Font Color

Black against White is a harsh contrast

White against black is also hard on the eyes

Dark Grey is easier on the eyes

Don’t use yellow or Red on dark backgrounds

Try a lighter grey on darker backgrounds

White works well on colored backgrounds

Bad

What could go wrong?

Good

Why?

Creating an .spfont file

 /_catalogs/theme/15/

Understanding Page Layouts

The Grid Layout

Most Modern Layouts are based on a 12 columnGrid Layout. It allows for easier consistency in content placement on a page and spacing considerations.

Top Zone with Lg Left/Small right

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

Small Left/Large Right

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

The Three Column Layout

The Three Column has the most variety of uses. With the left navigation, users can choose to navigate to other areas of the site as well as focus on content. This layout offers a large variety of uses for:

• Department Home Pages• Landing Pages• Intranet Landing Pages• Content Pages

The Three Column Layout

Use content types to help users implement the content that is right for the layout versus placing multiple webpart zones on a page and leaving too much for the user to have to decide on.

Ways to Present Links

The easiest solution to navigation was to add another link on the page. What happened in the end, was we had pages based of only links and couldn’t find the information we were looking for.

What not to do

Lucky Number 7

7 Seven links is the most that a short-term memory can remember at a time. Any more than seven and your brain will start to slow down in processing.

IconographyUsing Icons to help present a list or create an additional navigational structure will break up the presentation of a traditional links list and engage users.

Use Color to help differentiate functionality for icons.

Client-Side RenderingOverrides rendering of

HeaderItemFooter

Create any HTML/CSS

Applies to all lists on page*

Use the list title for targeting

Display Templates

Display Templates are used to display data from SharePoint search.

Search is the best way to aggregate data from across SharePoint or even integrate data from outside SharePoint.

Display Templates provide a framework to create a custom experiences with data from the search engine.

This is a custom card template used to make a Site Catalog experience in an intranet

Display Templates

Engaging Navigation

Drop Down Navigation

Drop Down menus are a primary way of creating navigation in SharePoint. Be careful not to place too many links in the drop down. 

Think about your users and the screen sizes available to them. 

Mega-Menu Navigation

If using a mega menu, see if you can  places links in a category to help make choices easier for users to find

Vertical Navigation

Vertical Navigation is a great way to showcase your navigation in a refreshing way. If you show off-canvas, the user can choose to minimize or hide the navigation to focus on the content on the page. 

Summary

What did we learn?

• Colors in a site are used to provoke an emotional response• Content is placed in specific layouts to allow users to focus on content first and the 

process• Creating a simple navigation will allow users to get to content faster• Too much content on a page will deter users from using the page and going further• Links can be more affective if presented in different manners

Thank you!