Information Architecture for key users: Great tips by Chris Poteet

Chris Poteet shares some great tips on the EndUserSharePoint.com site:

*Expose the global navigation from the parent site(s) in your subsites. It will help to orient users in the application.

*When naming lists and libraries, use descriptive names that make sense to your audience. For instance, “Documents” isn’t a great name for a document library, because you have many document types.

*Develop a consistent naming convention for lists and libraries that can be enforced throughout the enterprise.

*Use columns to manage document information, not file names. End Users have a tendency to insert metadata into the name of the document.

*Instead of a name such as “2008-08-01-MeetingMinutes-ProductionTeam.docx”, create three columns that will hold the important information about the document: Date, Type of Document, Team.

*When using document workflow, insert a “Status” column .

*Use columns to query, organize, and present information.

*Leverage the Quick Launch bar. It is local navigation that you can control. Fill it with descriptive link titles and headings to aid navigation around your site..

*When creating/requesting a new site, make it a Publishing site (MOSS, only). A
Publishing Site allows the creation of many, individual web pages. These can be used to give a “dashboard-like” view into your content.

*Ask potential users try to navigate through your site and give you feedback on what you can change to make it easier.

About: Marijn

Marijn Somers (MVP) has over 14 years experience in the SharePoint world, starting out with SP2007. Over the years the focus has grown to Office 365, with a focus on collaboration and document management. He is a business consultant at Balestra and Principal Content Provider for "Mijn 365 Coach" that offers dutch employee video training. His main work tracks are around user adoption, training and coaching and governance. He is also not afraid to dig deeper in the technicalities with PowerShell, adaptive cards or custom formatting in lists and libraries. You can listen to him on the biweekly "Office 365 Distilled" podcast.