Creating a Great User Experience in SharePoint by Marc Anderson - SPTechCon
Delivering Value to Users with SharePoint Search
1. Delivering Value to Users with SharePoint
Search
presenters Pisarek
Michal names
SharePoint MVP
month, day, year
Founder Dynamic Owl Consulting
2. Slide Title
Introduction: Michal Pisarek
Founder of Dynamic Owl Consulting
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• Microsoft SharePoint MVP
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Organizer of the Vancouverof presentation
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title
SharePoint Users Group
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Blog: SharePointAnalyst HQ month, day, year
Contributing Author
International SharePoint Speaker
3. Slide Title Owl
Dynamic
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SharePoint Master text styles
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Business focused
• Strategylevel
» Third & Roadmap
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Governance level
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• Change Management month, day, year
• Requirements Elicitation
• Intranets and Digital Workplaces
4. Slide Title Agenda
Today’s
What we’re covering today:
Why search is difficult
Common search mistakes
Tips to improve your SharePoint search
5. Slide Title Goals
Session
Have a framework that
Tools and techniques to
Understand what you can use to define
help you create great
collaboration is and isn’t collaboration for your
collaboration solutions
organization
6. Why is search so difficult?
Why simple does not mean easy
8. Slide Title
The Google Effect
Fooled people into thinking search requires no effort
Users have a very low tolerance for failure
Enterprise search is fundamentally different in context
9. The Google Effect Part 1
Slide Title
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10. The Google Effect Part 2
Slide Title
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11. The Google Effect Part 3
Slide Title
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13. Slide Title
Search Custom Advanced
Customto edit
Click ScopesMaster text styles Pages
Refiners Results Search
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Bets Bets and Search
› Expansion Sets
Keywords Fourth level
Sources Suggestions
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Custom
Replacement Search Syntax
Ranking People Search
Sets Training
Algorithms
1
3
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Slide of vision
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16. Slide TitleRoadmap
Search
How will search provide you value and when will
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this happen?
• Second level a plan going forward for search?
Do you have
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» Third level improvements and feedback are
Incremental
far › Fourth levelthe big bang approach
superior to
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17. Slide until last in a project
Left Title
Easy to flick a
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switch and results
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appear
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No resources left
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Easy item to check
of a project plan
Implement search
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19. Slide Title
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20. Slide Title FANTASTICO INC SEARCH STRATEGY
OUTCOMES
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MEASURES
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TARGET STORIES month, day, year
SHAREPOINT SCOPE AND CONFIGURATION
21. Slide Title OUTCOMES
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MEASURES
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TARGET STORIES
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SHAREPOINT SCOPE
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The Golden Rule of Gathering Search Requirements
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23. Slide Title TECHNIQUES DELIVERABLE
Search Vision Statement
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OUTCOMES
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» Third KPI Workshop
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List of measures that
MEASURES make sense
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Backlog of stories month, day, year
TARGET STORIES
Functional Spec and
Solution
SHAREPOINT SCOPE
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3
26. Slide Title and Keywords
Best Bets
Acronyms
• Any TLAs
Department Names:
• Accounting
• Human Resources
• Marketing
Common Business Terms
• Engineering Organizations: Topics
• Banking: Task Based
General Terms
• Common Actions: Printing, Mail, Car Hire, Travel, Banking
• Locations: Office locations, Project Locations
• Leave: Leave forms, holiday forms, travel request
• SharePoint Based: Intranet, Projects, Training
• Intranet Based: Events, News, Stories
27. Slide Title Workshop
Best Bets
Get diverse people in a room
Hand out cue cards with the Best Bet format
Write 10 each, then shuffle and swap
At the end review all Best Bets
29. Slide Title
Scopes
How does your organization think about
information?
• Content Based:
Contracts, Policies, Procedures
• Task Based: New Member
Account, Termination, New Loan Application
• Storage Based: C Drive, SharePoint Sites, CRM
• Time Based: Yearly Financial Cycles
• Department Based: Accounting
30. Slide Title
Our Experience
Always have a Documents search scope implemented
Users are more comfortable with the word ‘filter’ than
‘scope’
Too many scopes can be confusing
31. Slide Title
Card Sorting
Lets people group related information
together
Powerful way to see how users think
about information in groups
Great to see how scopes should be
structured
Two types:
• Open: Users create categories
• Closed: Pre-defined categories
32. Slide Title a card sort
Running
Create cue cards
Users sort into categories
Can be done online or in
person
34. Slide Title Results Pages
Custom
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Images blatantly stolen from Corey Roth, Matthew McDermott and Todd Carter
35. Slide Title Result Workshop
Custom
Select the content that you want to target (this is
usually tied to scopes)
Sit users in a room with a facilitator
Get users to choose which pieces of metadata
are important and how they should be displayed
FILE SIZE START DATE TITLE
CUSTOMER
FILE TYPE CUSTOMER EXCERPT
START DATE YEAR
EXECUTED BY YEAR LAST MODIFIED
OFFICE/BRANCH PROJECT NUMBER
PROJECT ID PROJECT NUMBER OFFICE/BRANCH
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37. Slide Title
Invest in People Search
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40. Slide Title your search web part
How was
Great way to gather
feedback about search
Simple way for end
users to communicate
their feedback
The information can be
a goldmine
Done more harm than good by fooling users that you don’t have to do anything for great searchUsers have amazing search experiences in the consumer space that is not replicated in the enterpriseThe serendipitous moment that occurs with google rarely occurs in the four walls of workReasons:Algorithm google uses doesn’t work inside enterpriseContent is not made to be foundInternet search is like looking for anything at all... whereas enterprise search is like looking for something specific:People don't want general information; they want the 100% definitive answer
People think that google does it all that no intervention is needed from usersHowever look how much effort is put into content on the internet with metadata, seoContent is made to be found on the internet, its lost in a pit of despair in the enterprise
Unclear expectations around what is being searched, how users should search leads to failureWith the great consumer search experiences users are spolied with search experiences
Internet search is like looking for anything at all... whereas enterprise search is like looking for something specific:People don't want general information; they want the 100% definitive answerThe algorithms that work in the internet don’t work in the enterprise: page links, The only way to get this context is by metadata, requirements, and configuring your search implementation to your organization
The lack of exactly what value search will bring is a common issueUsing platitudes or not breaking down search into tangible requirements that can be implemented causes search implementations to go round and round achieving nothingThere are many possible end results of search, a vision will help you target all activities to that goalHaving search working is like saying that your goal is to have SharePoint working, it really makes no senseSome possible visions:Consolidate disparate data sources for easy retrievalBe able to put a name to a face instantlyPromote innovation by not only returning back actualy results but other relevant results from alternate departments
Some examples of visions are above the we can go through and implementYou need a goal that you can go for and this can change over time
With all the possible areas of value what is your plan for search?A roadmap for search will allow you to invest your resources correctly
The ultimate double edge sword – easy to leave to last, hard to get rightIn order to drive value from search it should be considered iteratively during the project, looking at the value it will provideBy virtue of leaving it last the organization DOES deploy search, however it sometimes fails to achieve significant valueEasy to tick off a project plan, difficult to justify the value that it provides
Biggest mistake is not having use cases that can be implementedIt can be as simple as working to 10 solid user stories that are tangible enough to be implementedThese are actual examples that have been used to target search and provide value
Partiton the content for a smaller and more targetted subset of resultsYou should always have more than the two default scopes that are providedAt least provide your users with a document only scope that they can useIf your organization works on a financial year basis then create an archived scopeSome suggestions for other scopes are:NewsDocumentsArchived Content
Scopes great way to segregate the index for more targetted search resultsBut you need to know how your organization thinks about information for this to be effectiveMultiple different scopes that can be implemented
A way to find out how people group and think about related information is cardsortingThis is an IA exercise taken from the UX community but can have great value in searchAllows you to see what types of content you should have in scopes, how you should organize taxonomy, and how users essentially view the information in the enterpriseFor instance to determine what content should be in what scopes you can use a card sort to allow people to place content into predefined categoriesSo would a contract be in the finanical scope or in the investor relations scope for example?
Create cue cards with various bits of information such as types of content or even metadataTake a variety of users and get them to sort the cards into groupsThe great thing is that you get your taxonomy or scope or whatever built for youBut its really the conversations that users between each other that allows you to much better understand the organizationIt can be done in person or even online through a cardsorting tool like optimalworkshop which I loveI have done online cardsorts to determine what should go in scopes up to 500 users which is cool
Invest as much time into people search as you do into content searchBecause the majority of knowledge isnt codified in organizations you are frequently looking for a person, not a documentFor many organizations simply having the ability to find peoples phone numbers is amazing People usually don't want to know the answer, people usually want to know who knows the answer
What can you do if the business simply won’t let you ask questions or take users time away in a workshop?The How was your search web part allows users to provide feedbackSuper simple to implement and a great way to get informationEngages a wide variety of end users to provide feedback