A comment was recently posted to one of my older blogs looking for more than text. “Words, words, words,” the commentor said, quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet– “Are there visual examples of SharePoint Designer done right?”
As it happens, there are. Of course, we need to be clear that not all SharePoint visuals are conceived through SharePoint Designer. And as always, we can’t go without our traditional caveat that visuals are only a part of the experience. UI is just one element of UX.
That said, our commentor is right. Pictures help. But you might have to pay for them. Intranets aren’t public, so it’s hard to find good examples of intranet design.
In the last few years, SharePoint has done very well for itself in Nielsen Norman Group’s annual study of the Ten Best Intranets. If you purchase a copy, you’ll find some great examples of SharePoint-based work.
The same SharePoint platform that we use for Intranets is used to host plenty of public-facing internet sites as well. Some fantastic designs have been done on this platform. Wssdemo.com provides a good sampling and a handy Silverlight pivot viewer to quickly find a site that appeals to your own sensibilities.
I’d also suggest just browsing around for SharePoint video case studies (using Bing to earn credits and get social context, of course).
Much like the Bible, you can find a quote from Hamlet for anything. After all, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Or in this case, more things on the internet. You just have to know where to find them!
