Forum Discussion
Navigation in Office 365 / Teamsites / Groups / Sharepoint Home -- Where is Microsoft leading us?
Hi,
Very good topic and also a current one. I designed a new Intranet concept to one of my client after the future of Sharepoint event.
This client of my feels very strongly about the global navigation. We dicussed about the Office 365 and the way SharePoint is going to evolve.
After several sessions and long discussion we decided the following:
- no global navigation
- a form of "global navigation" will be in the SharePoint view by promoted sites
- All the navigation will be made via SharePoint view
- Follow suggestions guidelines are made my job role, to make adoption easier
-- > but this is just a starging point design. The design will be reviewed after all the new features are launched by the end of this year. Then we can actually see is if this really is the way to go plan - or is there still a way to make a traditional Intranet design.
During the discussions our major concern was the users. The concept is so different than any other site used before it will require a huge amount of internal support and guidance.
Also we identified that the information architecture has to be changed and re-designed after we know more about the new SharePoint Framework based pages.
This is how far I have gotten with this issue for now. It would be great to hear what others think about this matter.
Anna-Maria Kähkönen - could you elaborate a bit more on your solution? It's an interesting topic, but I fail to see how one could implement a solution without global navigation and without making the user experience a few more clicks away than usual. I'd be interested to hear how you're going to acheive this and the question is also whether or not it's worth it considering the potential user impact if they don't see what they would expect to see in terms of global navigation.
Well the idea is that the new SharePoint page will be the new landing page. From where user can navigate to different global navigation sections. See picture black 1.
When user is navigated to for examble site 1. The navigation to new sections will require the user to come back to sharepoint view - see picture black 2.
But this is just preliminary design. We need to wait after ignite to see, if this is the best possible option to do this. This approach requires us to rethink the whole site and the information structure. But to me - I think is best to try new things rather than try to force the old ideas to new system.
How is your navigation going? How are people adapting? Has there been any other changes?
I'm curious if anyone else has started to focus less on global navigation and more on sites and trending sites/topics more?
Interesting topic indeed. With all this talk of SharePoint Home being the landing page of "the intranet", are we now suggesting a traditional Corporate Intranet could be a thing of the past? Surley there is still a need there?
Thanks Anna-Maria Kähkönen I see where you're going with this. Our current SharePoint implementation made use of Wikis alot before we started structuring data into subsites so our users are used to the global navigation.
I am affraid this (new) concept will disturb more than it will help. it is always good to rethink of things but also be aware of the extra clicks users have to do before they can move on.
I think they will not kill the global nav. or chage it. but maybe i am wrong here :-)
Kr,
Paul
Yes, I totally agree - more clicks it is not ideal design. The old way to go is in many way much better. But like said, this is just an early stage design and we most definetly are going to rethink this after we know more about what is coming and can be more sure which is a better way to go.
This is very interesting topic to hear other peoples ideas and concerns. Let's all come back to here after ignite, shall we :D
I'm also in the process of designing our Office 365 Groups / SharePoint implementation.
Since we will be coming from Network Shares, the usage will be completely different for them, but I think going through the SharePoint Waffle won't be that much of a change.
I'd say "My Computer > Network XY > Folder AB > File Z" is not much different than "SharePoint Waffle > Site XY > Document Library AB > File Z".
But yeah, I agree, there is still "something" missing in the overall navigation design. Guess we're all wating for the next week (Ignite) for a) release of previously announced features and b) new insights for the future.
- IMHO, it should be possible to have this global navigation for schenarios / customers where the new SharePoint Lading page and the way to discover sites is not enough / considered as a good / practical solution
